Superwomen of Eva 2: Lone Heir of Krypton
by Mike313
Summary: Having been conceived by donor sperm, Asuka never knew who her biological father was, but she assumed he was someone extraordinary. She had no idea how right she was, but she's going to find out.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC Comics or anything associated with it, and I am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Prologue: **Secret Origin

Krypton was dying.

For years, the proud people of this ancient world had refused to acknowledge that the end was coming and had buried their heads in the sand as the cataclysm approached. They had believed that the cradle of their civilization could never perish. It was the only place they could live without running the risk of polluting their glorious culture with foreign influences, so it _had_ to be eternal.

They had all scoffed at Jor-El's predictions that Krypton was going to explode.

Only now, as the planet began to tear itself apart, did they finally acknowledge the horrible truth: Jor-El had never been some crazed alarmist; he had been right all along. If only they had seen it, they might have escaped to the stars.

As it was, only one child of Krypton could hope to escape this cataclysm, and that was Kal-El, the infant son of the only Kryptonian with the foresight to construct a space ship capable of interstellar flight. So, as deep fissures began to form all over the surface of the planet, allowing the molten mantle to spew forth, Jor-El frantically prepared this rocket for take off.

"It's possible for you to go with him, Lara," Jor-El spoke, not pausing in his work for a moment. "Even though I designed this ship to carry only one—"

"No," his wife said, quiet but firm. She gazed down at the infant boy she held in her arms. "I couldn't bear to risk his life by going along, and I won't leave you here to die alone."

"Thank you," Jor-El said softly, quietly relieved that he wouldn't have to face the end by himself. "The ship is ready."

Lara nodded, and with tears glistening in her eyes, carefully placed her only child within the cockpit. Jor-El sealed it, and then he and his wife stepped back as it launched, quickly escaping Krypton's gravity well and soaring off into the infinite blackness of space.

"Good-bye, my son," Lara whispered.

Jor-El gripped his wife's hand. "We will die, but our son will live."

Many Jor-El's in many realities would speak these words, or words like them, mere moments before the planet Krypton perished forever. In most of these realities, the prophecy made by the current patriarch of the House of El would prove true, and his son would arrive safe and sound on the planet Earth.

Unfortunately, this was not one of those realities. Jor-El had made the tiniest error when he had calculated the flight plan, and as a result, his son's ship would not take him to the Midwestern region of the United States, as Jor-El had intended. Instead, the ship would crash land in Germany's Black Forest, and the impact would kill the young life within.

One of the Earths that most needed a hero would have to do without Superman, but the legacy of Krypton wasn't dead quite yet.

* * *

"Terminated?" Hamilton gasped, as if he didn't quite comprehend the meaning of the word.

Hanna Huber, the chief administrator of Germany's only branch of STAR Laboratories, gave Hamilton a sympathetic look. "That's right, Emil," she said. "It's been decided that further research of the Visitor should be terminated."

"But why?" Hamilton asked, clearly bewildered as he began to pace restlessly about the room.

Hanna shook her head slightly; she had known he wouldn't take this well. Hamilton had accepted a transfer from one of the STAR Lab facilities in the US to work on studying the Visitor, and since then, the man had thoroughly romanticized the infant alien boy who hadn't survived his interstellar trek. Hell, the man was borderline obsessed with the Visitor.

"Money," Hanna answered, spreading her hands helplessly. "It's always money. GEHRIN gets all the UN grants these days, and the individual governments don't give out much anymore. In a few years, STAR will probably be a shadow of what it once was. You know that."

Hamilton nodded, absently tugging on his neat beard as he did so. It was obvious to Hanna, who knew him as well as anyone, that he was still reeling.

"But why has the study of the Visitor been cut?" he asked. "It should be the last thing to go!"

"Because, it shows no prospects of producing any kind of profitable results in the short term," Hanna answered.

Hamilton gave her an appalled look. Hanna scowled and snapped, "I'm not defending it! That's just the way it is. I have no ability to override the board, you know."

"I know," Hamilton said. "Still, the Visitor is an extraterrestrial life form! And if what my research shows is correct, had he lived, he could have been humanity's greatest champion…"

"Or he could have become the evil overlord of Earth," Hanna countered. "A lot of people are rather leery of aliens these days, what with all the rumors about the real cause of Second Impact, or that thing that landed in China."

Hamilton waved this off. "That's nothing but gossip. Just because someone who works for GEHRIN now says something, doesn't mean it's true."

"Perhaps not, but you can understand how people would cling to beliefs that aliens are responsible for such a catastrophe," Hanna responded, rather scathingly. "Something in our nature makes tragedy easier to cope with if we believe it wasn't completely random."

Hamilton sometimes appeared to be very high up in the ivory tower to her, so much so that he barely seemed to grasp the magnitude of Second Impact, which wasn't exactly in the distant past.

The bespectacled American didn't respond, and Hanna soon softened. "Look, I did manage to secure enough funding to have the Visitor put in stasis, and everything pertaining to the project stored. It's possible that we'll find more funding from somewhere and will be able to resume the project."

Hamilton just nodded, knowing all too well how unlikely that was. And even if STAR did get new funding and recommenced the study of the Visitor, it was possible that it might not be within Hamilton's lifetime.

* * *

Hamilton kept busy over the next few weeks, assigned to other duties at STAR. However, the Visitor was never far from his mind.

Even he had to admit he had no real notion of why he'd begun to imagine that the Visitor would have been one of Earth's greatest heroes had he survived his arrival on the planet. The idea had just thoroughly gripped his imagination as the analysis of the being's genetic code began to reveal the powers the boy would have enjoyed if he'd lived.

That vision had only grown stronger after Second Impact had rocked the world, and humanity had so desperately needed a hero. Hamilton had no real idea of how studying the Visitor would give the world that hero, but that had never diminished his zeal in the slightest.

This latest command from the board to all but scrap the project made him feel as though humanity was throwing away a massive, and perhaps very necessary, opportunity.

So, this was the brooding state of mind he was in when she arrived.

* * *

"Morning, Olga," Hamilton greeted the front desk lady at STAR Labs as he absently nursed a cup of coffee.

It was a day very much like any other, and he wasn't expecting anything out of the ordinary to occur.

"Morgen, Dr. Hamilton," Olga greeted. "You have a patient in room one. She requested you specifically."

Hamilton arched an eyebrow at this. This particular branch of STAR Labs was, in addition to being a genetic research facility, also a fertility clinic. It was a duty that had been more or less thrust upon them by the German government after Second Impact, in an effort to help get the population back up. Not that the board had minded; they had already had most of the necessary equipment and expertise available, and it was a way of bringing in much needed revenue.

However, he knew of no patients of his who should be coming in at the moment, and he couldn't think of anyone else but a previous patient who would ask for him by name.

"Very good, thank you," he said to Olga as he gave a mental shrug and headed for exam room one.

He plucked the patient folder out of the plastic container that had been attached to the door of the exam room, then opened the door and walked in.

"Guten Morgen, Emil."

Hamilton jumped slightly at the unexpected sound of that familiar voice, then he broke out into a broad grin. "Kyoko!" he exclaimed.

The two exchanged a brief hug, which Hamilton tried not to enjoy too much. She had been his co-worker once, before GEHRIN had lured her away from STAR with promises of a higher salary, grander projects to work on, and an important position on her new research team. Hamilton had to admit to having harbored an infatuation with the striking and brilliant red headed woman. Had he been a decade or two younger, and she single, he doubtless would have pursued her. Indeed, if not for the twenty year age gap between them, he might have pursued her despite her being married, if only because he secretly disliked her husband Richard very strongly.

"It's been far too long, Emil," Kyoko said once they had separated.

"Yes, it really has been," Hamilton agreed. "You don't know how often I find myself wishing you'd never left STAR."

Kyoko's smile wavered somewhat. "You should join GEHRIN. I know they've made you offers, Emil. A man of your intelligence…"

He waved the suggestion off. "I'm afraid circumstances have me quite tied to STAR," he said, thinking of the Visitor. "So, to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?"

"Oh," Kyoko began, suddenly looking rather bashful, "well, you see, Richard and I want to start a family. We've been trying since before the Impact."

Hamilton nodded. "You're very brave," he commented softly.

Certainly he would never want to bring a child into the world as it was now, not that he really had the option, anyway, lacking a woman who would be willing to bear his offspring.

"Thank you," Kyoko said. "But, well, when nothing happened, we went to get tested. It turns out he's completely sterile."

"I see," Hamilton said, ruthlessly suppressing the malicious little smirk that threatened to appear on his face at this knowledge. "So, I take it that you're looking to become pregnant via a sperm donor?"

Kyoko nodded. "Yes," she said. "I've already gotten through all the red tape and everything at another facility. I came here to get the actual procedure done."

Hamilton nodded and opened Kyoko's folder. His eyebrows went up as he read what was inside. "Not very picky, were you?" he commented before he was able to stop himself.

In his experience, most women who tried to become pregnant with donor sperm very carefully selected their child's father. The system mandated confidentiality for the donors, of course, but the clinic kept a log of the physical traits of each donor, which would-be mothers often poured over endlessly before selecting one.

Kyoko, on the other hand, had simply stated that she wanted the donor to be free of any genetic ailments (pretty much a given with any woman using this service), and that the donor should have at least a moderate resemblance to her husband.

Kyoko smiled nervously. "I didn't want to waste time by being overly picky. Really, I don't put much stock in those ten word descriptions of the men. I just need the child to be able to pass for Richard's own offspring," she said. "He's a little leery of doing it this way."

Hamilton narrowed his eyes slightly. In the past, _that_ statement would have enabled him to throw all kinds of roadblocks into Kyoko's path, something he wouldn't have considered a bad idea. In the post-Second Impact world, though, getting the population up was key, and many laws had been changed to reflect that.

_It's probably just my own emotions clouding my judgment,_ he thought.

"All right," he said. "Let's begin, then. Hopefully by the time we're done, Kyoko, you'll be an expecting mother."

* * *

Not much later, Hamilton found himself heading for the cold storage room where the lab kept all of its donor sperm. He really had no intention of doing anything other than randomly selecting sperm which met Kyoko's very broad specifications.

So perhaps it was simply fate that he just happened to pass the room where all the material relating to the Visitor was stored.

Hamilton walked right past it at first, then found himself stopping short as the inevitable idea occurred to him. He possessed the equipment and the skills necessary to use the Visitor's genetic material to fertilize a human egg cell. For all the crucial differences between the Visitor's genetic makeup and human DNA, the two species were shockingly similar, and it would take very little technological interference to make the creation of a hybrid possible.

Really, it was only because the full extent of the powers the Visitor could have had was still largely a mystery that Hamilton had never petitioned to be allowed to clone him or create his offspring, knowing he'd never get the green light until that was fully discovered.

Surely, he mused, any child raised by Kyoko would grow to be a good person, someone who would use any powers he or she developed for good.

_But, no, it wouldn't be right to do such a thing to her,_ Hamilton thought, but did not walk away.

On the other hand, he thought, the Visitor did _technically_ match the description Kyoko had given him—if only because she had probably assumed that it went without saying that the father should be human. And really, the child would be blessed with abilities no ordinary human could ever hope to have. Wouldn't any would-be mother want her child to be gifted?

Hamilton hesitated for a long moment, then he opened the door to the Visitor's storeroom and went inside.

* * *

**Fifteen Years Later…**

As it had been so many times before in Earth's history, the ocean had become a battlefield. However, this was no normal struggle of man versus man on the high seas. No, this time, it was mankind fighting against a monster bent on eradicating them.

And humanity's final trump, Evangelion, was caught between said monster's teeth as it swam about beneath the waves.

Humanity wasn't about to give up yet, however. They were, as the Children of Adam were discovering, a very stubborn bunch.

At the moment, Misato was just finishing her explanation of her latest crazy plan to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, almost literally this time. Neither of the two EVA pilots within the cramped entry plug had really absorbed the whole thing, but fortunately, all that was really required of them was that they get the Angel's mouth open.

"We'll do the best we can," Shinji Ikari said, even as Asuka Langley Soryu rained punches down on his back for committing the crime of piloting her Unit Two without her express consent.

"Get off me, you pervert!" the Second Child snapped, as he was practically in her lap, thanks largely to the entry plug's cramped confines.

"But we have to free ourselves, or we're done for!" Shinji protested.

Asuka growled slightly, but couldn't deny that he was right. She leaned forward, grabbing hold of the control yokes and pressing herself against the Third Child in the process.

"Don't go getting any ideas," she warned.

"Works for me," he grunted back.

The two Children pulled at the control yokes as they put all their will to the task of making the EVA open the Sixth Angel's great jaws.

_Open, open, open…_

Unit Two was pulled toward the surface as its umbilical cable was retracted by the _Over the Rainbow_, the Sixth Angel being dragged along with it. Two old but still powerful battleships began to sink, preparing for their final assault.

The Angel's jaws remained shut all the while.

Shinji and Asuka redoubled their efforts as their demise drew nearer with each passing second, and unconsciously pulled harder on the control yokes as they did so.

_**Open, open, open, OPEN!**_

At the last possible moment, Unit Two's four eyes lit up with a blazing white light, and the crimson Evangelion went into motion, forcing the terrible maw of the Sixth Angel open.

Seconds later, the two sinking battleships rammed themselves down the Angel's throat, and their mighty forward guns roared in anger one final time, sending their ordnance directly into the Angel's core. The fish like monster's body bulged grotesquely as a result of this assault, and finally it could withstand no more and exploded, sending a gigantic column of water soaring upwards, along with Unit Two.

The red Evangelion soared through the air, its arms and legs flailing about wildly, until either the skill of its pilot or some stroke of incredible luck caused it to land right on the deck of the super carrier _Over the Rainbow_, where it slumped down, quickly deactivating.

Within the entry plug, the two Children were completely silent for several seconds. Then…

"Mein Gott!" Asuka exclaimed. "What the hell?!"

An outside observer could be forgiven for thinking that the cause of the Second Child's exclamation was the intense and just plain crazy battle that had marked her entry into the war against the Angels.

Said outside observer would be mistaken, however, as the cause of the Second Child's shock and distress wasn't the battle at all, but the control yokes that she still held in her hands.

Both of them had been ripped completely out of the command interface and were now connected to nothing.

* * *

Author's Notes: Eva fans will note that I basically mixed Asuka's manga origins with her anime origins, which I hope nobody minds. I actually think it works quite well on a number of levels. For one, it would offer a sort of explanation for why Asuka's father was the second worst dad on in NGE after Gendo. If he secretly never really felt like she was his child, the way he apparently let NERV do what they wish with her and neglected her makes a bit more sense.

Also, a number of DC heroes are aliens, which presents a problem, since none of the ladies of Eva were aliens, obviously. I could just say that some kind of exposure to the Angels or something caused them to develop powers like those of the DC hero I want them to be, regardless if that hero has powers as a result of being an alien or not, but I'd prefer to do that as little as possible. Besides, doing it this way leaves certain doors open to me that would be closed otherwise.

A couple of things I feel I should also note here. One is that I'm a big fan of the DC Animated Universe, so you'll probably be seeing that influencing some of these stories quite a bit. One instance of that is Hamilton; I preferred the portrayal of him in Superman the Animated Series (to be referred to from here on out as STAS), where he served as Superman's tech support. I have no plans for him to be Ruin or anything, so don't hold your breath waiting for his heel turn. And yes, before anyone asks, I know what he did in Justice League Unlimited.

That said, I intend to cherry pick like crazy from all aspects of the Superman mythos. As the character's been around for about 70 years, there's a lot to chose from, and I'll grab any idea I like and feel I can use to good effect.

Oh, and Orion, I know, no mystery about which superhero the girl's becoming again, but I figured that the second people saw "Jor-El" and "Krypton" it would be obvious, and I liked this the way it was. With other ladies will be less obvious about what powers they're getting.

By the way, you might like to know that marcoasalazarm at deviantart has been mixing Eva girls with comic book characters for a long time now. Go check his page out if you want to see Asuka doing the Supergirl thing. There are also pictures of some of the ladies from the original SOE series.

Anyway, I have again rambled too much. So just let me say thanks as always to my readers and reviewers.

* * *

Omake

Rejected Heroes (part one)

"Hello all," spoke a stocky, bespectacled young man sitting at a desk with a computer upon it. "Mike313 breaching the fourth wall here. I hope you don't mind the brief self-insert too much.

"Now, I suspect a few of you are asking 'Why the hell did you make Asuka Kryptonian? Superman stands for truth, justice, and the American way! We can't expect that from the Red Devil!'"

The author then paused. "Of course, since none of our ladies are actually American citizens, none of them can really be expected to fight for the American way, but that's neither here nor there," he mused with a dismissive wave. "Anyway, I can assure I do have reasons for choosing as I did for Asuka, but I can't tell you most of them because that might well spoil parts of the story."

The author leaned back in his chair. "However, something I can share with you, dear readers, is why I _didn't_ make Asuka one of several other heroes I considered for this story," he said. "And here to help me with the explanation is Asuka herself."

The Second Child tromped into the room, a scowl on her face. "I don't see why I have to help you with this," she grumbled, crossing her arms.

"Because I reserved the right to write this story a long time ago so you'd have an author who actually likes you doing your second Superwomen of Eva story?" Mike responded dryly. "You owe me, Soryu."

"You eventually decided to write pretty much the whole damn series," she protested.

"Yeah, but I called dibs on yours a long time before that," the author pointed out.

"Fine," Asuka huffed, "let's just get this over with."

"Great, let's begin!" Mike said, then turned back to the readers. "One of the supers I considered for this was the Spectre, DC comic's own spirit of vengeance."

A man with chalk white skin and a green, hooded cloak suddenly appeared in the room, much to the Second Child's surprise. "Mein Gott!"

The man then rounded on Asuka and actually plunged _into_ her torso, vanishing. Asuka screamed, and suddenly her skin went just as white as his had been and the green cloak appeared on her.

"What the hell?!" Asuka exclaimed. "I make Ayanami look tan!"

The author cheerfully ignored her. "The Spectre appealed to me for Asuka's story for a number of reasons. First, I like the duality of having Asuka be the spirit of vengeance in both SOE-verses, and the Spectre is more than different enough from the Ghost Rider that I wouldn't feel I was being unoriginal. The origin would be easy enough; I basically would just have had to kill Asuka—"

"WHAT?!"

"And then have had Spectre join with her soul," the author continued. "Piece of cake from my standpoint. Plus, Asuka effectively being a ghost would have the added bonus of giving me ample opportunity to screw with canon. With Asuka dead, Unit Two would need a new pilot, after all."

"The hell it would!" Asuka snapped.

"And as an added bonus, one of the Specter's weaknesses is the Spear of Destiny, which is really just the Lance of Longinus by another name. I could make use of that fact somehow, I'm sure," the author continued.

"What? The Lance is bigger than an _Eva_. Trying to kill someone human sized with it would be about as effective as trying to kill a fly with a hand grenade," Asuka pointed out, sweat dropping.

"But there were problems, too," the writer went on. "First and most importantly, I'm not actually all that familiar with the Spectre. Most of my exposure to him was when he was paired with Hal Jordan, and that wasn't exactly situation normal for the Spectre."

Asuka's sweat drop grew larger. "Yeah, that's a pretty big problem."

"Then there's the fact that I couldn't think of a way to bring Asuka back to life at the end. Also, Asuka as the Spectre would have Shinji romancing with a ghost, which is just so damn cliché. So, I ultimately decided to can this idea."

The Spectre suddenly emerged from Asuka's form and flew off, quickly disappearing. The Second Child breathed a sigh of relief as she realized she was back to normal. "Thank Gott."

"Now, the next rejected idea…"

"No, damn it!" Asuka shrieked.

_To be continued in rejected heroes, part two…_


	2. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC Comics or anything associated with it, and I am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter One:** Discoveries

"You did _not_ double check the damn things!" Asuka roared into the phone. "If you had double checked them, you would have realized that they were prone to _falling off!_"

The hapless chief of the Third Branch's technical division tried to sputter something out. However, the connection from Japan to Germany was less than optimal, so his excuses barely got through. The Second Child's rage, however, was more than able to transcend the poor connection.

"Why can't you just admit that you installed defective control yokes into my Unit Two?!" she demanded.

The man on the other end sounded like he was on the verge of tears as he tried to assert that he and his people had done no such thing.

"Ugh, never mind," Asuka growled, fed up with the conversation, and then slammed the phone back into its cradle.

"Gott damn it," she grumbled, running a hand through her long red hair.

She would have _really_ torn into the man, but there was little actual point in it. The odds of the Third Branch ever working on her Unit Two again were virtually nil.

Still, there was the principle of the thing to consider. She couldn't let someone do such a shoddy job of maintaining her Unit Two and get away scott free.

Besides, the Second Child had really wanted to vent her anger over the failure of her control yokes to someone, and the head of the German technical staff had been the most logical choice.

Asuka was still _mortified_ to even think about the incident. After she'd told the Third Child about how great her EVA was in an attempt to finally have one up on NERV's golden boy, one of the simplest parts of her Evangelion had literally fallen apart right in front of him.

He had wisely refrained from making any snide comments at the time, but she could just picture him telling his stooge friends about it and them having a good laugh at her expense…

The Second Child shook her head, trying to clear the unpleasant image from her mind. There was no point in dwelling on it now. She'd just have to put the invincible Third Child in his place at a later date.

Deciding that she needed a distraction, Asuka searched around the hotel room where she currently resided for the TV's remote control.

"Damn NERV bureaucracy," she grumbled as she searched for the device in the drawer of the bedside table. "A whole cage reserved for Unit Two and no plans for where to put me."

Not that she had any objections to NERV having readied a place for her EVA. On the contrary, it was only right and proper that they should make all the necessary preparations for the best Evangelion. Still, it was far easier to prepare accommodations for a human than it was for an EVA, and she would have expected better of NERV Central. Maybe she was just too accustomed to German efficiency.

They had actually wanted to put her into the barracks until they found a more permanent place to quarter her. However, Kaji, bless him, had spoken up even before she could object, saying that the barracks were no place for a young lady like her.

It was only a pity that when he'd said "young lady" Asuka had had the sinking suspicion he'd really meant "child."

_Well, I'll make him view me as a woman yet,_ Asuka vowed silently. It was not the first time she had made this promise to herself.

She finally found the remote and switched on the TV. The Second Child found herself watching a game show that featured a bunch of women with raw steaks tied to their clothes. They were in a large glass tank with some kind of huge lizard, and screaming like crazy as they tried to avoid it.

"Mein _Gott,_ the Japanese are so weird," Asuka grumbled as she flounced down on her bed and began channel surfing.

Eventually, she found a program she deemed halfway decent and settled down to watch it. After a few minutes, she absently reached out for a glass of water she'd placed on the bedside table. She picked it up…

And it shattered in her hand, splashing water all over her.

"Damn it!" she cursed, standing up. "Why has this been happening so much lately?"

Heaving a sigh, she got off the bed and began to work on cleaning up the mess. As she was picking up the pieces of broken glass, she noticed that she'd been fortunate in that none of them had cut her hand. In fact, she mused idly, she hadn't received a cut yet, despite the way she'd been popping drinking glasses left and right lately.

_Hmph, maybe fortune's starting to smile on me,_ she thought.

* * *

"Good morning, Soryu-san," the young woman in the lab coat greeted her. "I'm Dr. Yamaguchi."

"Morning," Asuka replied, far less cheerfully, "let's just get this over with."

Yamaguchi smiled. "Of course," she said. "I don't know why NERV demanded you come in for this checkup at this hour of the morning."

"I stopped trying to figure out the reasons for most of what NERV does a long time ago," Asuka grumbled. "So, where do you want me?"

"You can have a seat right there," Yamaguchi said, indicating the room's examination table.

Asuka got up on it, and the physician began to listen to her chest with a stethoscope.

_I understand NERV mandating these yearly checkups_. _Hell, I'm probably lucky they're not done monthly or weekly. But why did they have to call me in at six in the morning?_ She wondered.

"Noticed any strange symptoms or anything else you'd like to tell me about?" Yamaguchi asked as she took Asuka's blood pressure.

"Nothing worth mentioning," Asuka said dismissively.

"Oh? And what is it that you've decided isn't worth mentioning?" Yamaguchi asked.

"It's really nothing," Asuka said, silently cursing her choice of words. "It's just that I've been accidentally breaking a lot of things lately."

Yamaguchi smiled. "That's called adolescence, Soryu-san. You've probably had a growth spurt lately."

Asuka scowled, knowing that the doctor now thought of her as a naïve teenager who was freaked out by a little pubescent clumsiness.

She didn't believe that a growth spurt would cause anyone to start breaking drinking glasses and other things in the way she'd been doing lately. However, she wasn't about to argue the point with one of NERV's medical doctors, who had the ability to remove her from the war if she felt something was really wrong with her, so she kept her mouth shut.

Asuka's misgivings about the doctor's assumption seemed to be proved correct when Yamaguchi measured her height and found out that she hadn't grown all _that_ much since her last checkup. The doctor commented on this, but she still obviously wasn't concerned.

"Step on the scale, please, Soryu-san," Yamaguchi said next.

Asuka nodded and did as requested, and the doctor moved the weight on the bar until it was balanced. Her eyebrows rose. "You've gained fifteen pounds since last time," she said.

"What?!" Asuka exclaimed, looking down at herself. She certainly didn't look fat.

Yamaguchi tapped one of Asuka's arms with the side of her pen. "Muscle weighs more than fat, Soryu-san," she said. "Been working out a lot recently?"

"Uh, yeah," Asuka lied, almost automatically, and looked down at her arm.

She had noticed that she'd been looking a little more toned recently, but she hadn't thought it was that noticeable. Indeed, she hadn't really thought anything of it at all until now.

"That must be it, then," the doctor said. "You can get off the scale now."

"You want blood?" Asuka asked, knowing the routine by now.

"Yes," Yamaguchi said. "Don't worry, I'm very good at this."

"Mm," Asuka grunted noncommittally, holding out her arm.

The physician tied a rubber strip around Asuka's arm, causing the blue veins to become readily visible beneath the skin. She sterilized a spot, and then tried to puncture Asuka's skin, but the needle stubbornly refused to penetrate.

_The hell?_ The German wondered, feeling unreasonably nervous as she watched a doctor fail to do something that should be routine.

"I thought you said you were good at this," Asuka said.

Yamaguchi looked even more befuddled than the Second Child felt. "This needle must be defective," she muttered.

The doctor exchanged it for another one, and then tried again in a slightly different spot on Asuka's arm. This time, she managed to get the needle through with no difficulty, and the vial was soon full of dark red blood.

"There," Yamaguchi said as she applied a band-aid to Asuka's arm. "You're all done."

"Good," Asuka said. "Catch you later, doc."

The Second Child left the examination room, readjusting her sleeve and trying not to think about how the needle hadn't worked the first time.

"Good morning, Asuka. Finished already?"

_Yes!_ She thought, all her worries instantly banished by the sound of that familiar voice.

"Kaji!" she exclaimed, rushing over to the man and throwing herself onto his arm.

"Hey, Asuka," he greeted cheerfully. "Thought I'd give you a ride to school this morning. Wouldn't want you to miss your first day."

The redhead's smile faltered at the reminder. She didn't like how NERV had decreed that she had to go to the local junior high school, like she was some small child, instead of a young woman who'd already graduated from college.

However, she didn't want to snub Kaji, so she forced her smile back to its full brilliance. "How nice of you," she said.

"Come on, let's go," he said.

Asuka was quiet as they walked to the parking deck together, simply enjoying the company of the perfect man. Kaji, for his own part, didn't break the comfortable silence until they were in his car and driving out of the Geofront.

"So, what's on your mind, Asuka?" he asked. "You seem a little subdued this morning."

"I don't see why I have to go to school," Asuka said. "I already have my college degree."

"I think NERV just wants you to have as normal a life as possible, Asuka," Kaji replied easily.

"Then they should send me to a university or something," Asuka grumbled. "That's what's normal for me."

"Come on, Asuka, do you really need to be worrying about cramming for final exams in university while you're worrying about the Angels?" the man pointed out.

"Good point," Asuka conceded reluctantly.

"So, have they decided where you're going to be staying yet?" Kaji asked, trying to change the subject.

"No," Asuka said, and then added in the cutest voice she could muster, "but I really hope that I get to live with _you!_"

The man chuckled, rather nervously. "I don't think that will be possible."

Asuka sighed inwardly. _One of these days…_

Soon they had arrived at the school and Asuka got out, bidding good-bye to Kaji as she did so. The Second Child approached the building, smoothing out the stupid uniform as she walked.

_Stupid Japanese conformism,_ she thought. _Well, at least I can make even this look good._

A number of boys were already openly staring at the redhead as she walked across the schoolyard. A few of them even began following her, trying and failing to look like they just happened to be going in that direction anyway.

Asuka ignored them, of course. While she enjoyed their attention, she didn't want to encourage any of them. She was only interested in real men, not little boys who'd follow her around like a lost puppy. Besides, the line between "admirer" and "stalker" could be dangerously thin with some guys, and it was impossible to know who those guys were until they'd stepped _over_ said thin line.

She went to the office where she handed in her enrollment papers, and they summoned the representative of her new class. This proved to be a girl with freckles and pigtails.

"Hello, I'm Hikari Horaki," she greeted Asuka politely with a small bow.

"Hi, Hikari, I'm Asuka Langley Soryu," the Second Child replied, completely neglecting to make use of the honorifics that the Japanese language was annoyingly riddled with. "Let's be good friends!"

Hikari smiled. "I would like that," she said. "Come on, let me take you to the classroom."

The brunette led the redhead to class 1-A, asking a few polite questions that Asuka answered at length, keeping up a pleasant conversation.

They entered the classroom, still chatting amicably, until class officially began.

"Stand! Bow! Sit!" Hikari barked at the other students, who immediately obeyed.

Asuka's opinion of the girl rose a few notches; as a rule, the Second Child always approved of a woman who wasn't afraid to use her authority.

"All right, everyone, we have a new student today," Hikari said. "I hope you all make her feel welcome."

Asuka wrote her name on the board in elegant cursive, feeling pleased that she had such good penmanship. "Hello," she said, turning around the face the class, "I'm Asuka Langley Soryu."

Near the back of the room, a trio of boys looked on in horror.

* * *

"Okay, why did the Japanese school system allow some dirty old hentai to design these things?" Asuka asked, referring to the uniforms that she and the rest of the other female students were wearing in gym class.

The tops were alright, being simple short-sleeved T-shirts. However, instead of doing the sensible thing and giving them shorts, someone had decided to have them wear what was essentially a one-piece bathing suit underneath the shirt and nothing else. She felt like she was doing gym class in her panties.

Hikari smiled ruefully. "I don't know," she said. "I never got it, either."

Asuka just shook her head.

"Speaking of clothing, do you mind if I ask where you got those unusual hair clips from?" Hikari asked.

Asuka grinned proudly. "These aren't hair clips," she replied. "They're my A-10 connectors. I have to use them to control my Evangelion."

Hikari's eyes widened, and Asuka felt her mood lifting. Recognition for all her years of hard work in EVA was always appreciated.

"You pilot an EVA?" the class rep asked. "Like Ikari?"

_That_ name deflated her pleasure like a needle to a balloon.

_Argh! It _always_ comes back to him! The invincible Third Child!_ She thought, suddenly feeling so frustrated that she wanted to scream.

However, the redhead checked herself, reminding herself that it wasn't Hikari's fault that she'd never heard of her or her Unit Two yet. Besides, Asuka reassured herself, Ikari would be in her shadow soon enough, instead of the other way around.

"Oh, it looks like it's your turn," Hikari said, pointing toward the track, quite unaware of the Second Child's thoughts.

Asuka nodded and took her place. The girls were doing the 100 meter dash while the guys played basketball, which suited her fine. If the boys were around, she had no doubt the pubescent clowns would be looking at the girls' rear ends while they squatted in preparation to sprint.

She'd managed to hear that Suzuhara stooge make a couple of choice comments about the wonders of the female anatomy earlier, which hadn't exactly improved her opinion of him.

_How can he even see anything, ogling from all the way over there?_ She wondered as she took her place in line.

"On your mark! Get set! GO!"

The Second Child immediately took off at top speed, giving even this mostly informal competition everything she had. She had always been athletic, but she'd been too small to participate in any of her university's sports teams.

The world seemed to blur around her as she ran, feeling a sense of exhilaration at the speed. The muscles in her legs didn't burn at all, even as she poured on as much speed as she could, and she couldn't help but smile as the rush of endorphins hit her brain.

Then, all too soon, she had crossed the finish line and it was over. She wasn't even breathing hard.

"Asuka!" she heard Hikari shout, and turned around to see the class rep jogging toward her. "That was amazing! You never mentioned that you could run like that!"

The Second Child blinked. "What do you mean?" she asked.

She knew that she'd won, but it seemed like Hikari was overreacting.

"What do I mean?" Hikari said. "Asuka, I'd bet anything that you just shattered the school record! You should go join the school track team. I'll bet Coach Izuka would kill to have you."

Confused, but not about to question a compliment, Asuka just shook her head. "Can't. My duties at NERV don't leave me a whole lot of time for extracurricular activities."

"Oh, I see," Hikari said. "In that case, you might want to try and keep Izuka from finding out how fast you are. From the rumors, I don't think he'll allow you a moment's peace if he finds out and you refuse to join the team."

Asuka nodded absently, looking back at the strip of track she'd just run. Had she really been _that_ fast?

* * *

After gym came lunch. Under more ordinary circumstances, Asuka would have simply kicked back and enjoyed the time with Hikari. However, she had things to do.

"Hullo, Shinji!" she called, spotting the Third Child.

He winced as he turned to face her. "H-Hello."

She frowned, finding herself strangely displeased by the Third Child's rather lukewarm greeting, for reasons she didn't understand.

"Hey, why so gloomy?" she asked. "You should be glad that I'm talking to you! After all, _I'm_ the most popular girl in school!"

_Unlike you, who somehow can't turn being an Evangelion pilot into popularity at all_, she added scornfully inside her mind.

For good measure, she flicked him on the forehead.

"Ow!" he exclaimed, clutching at his forehead. "That hurt!"

She rolled her eyes. _What a drama queen. Well, you'll get no sympathy from me, Herr Golden Boy._

"Whatever," she said. "So, where's the other one?"

"Other one?" he echoed dumbly.

"Anta baka!" she snapped. "I'm talking about the First Child!"

"Oh, Ayanami," he said, gesturing.

Asuka turned and saw a girl with strange blue hair who was sitting at a bench and reading a small book. Abandoning Shinji, she quickly skipped over to her other "wingman," jumping up on a nearby bench.

"Hi, you must be Rei Ayanami, the First Child," Asuka said. "I'm the Second, Asuka Langley Soryu. Let's be good friends!"

"Why?" Rei responded in a completely neutral tone.

Asuka blinked, taken aback. It seemed self-evident to her why they, the two female EVA pilots, should be friends. Indeed, it seemed so obvious that she couldn't put it into words; she almost felt like she'd been asked to explain what red looks like to a blind person or something.

"Because it would be…convenient!"

"I will if I am ordered to," Rei replied curtly, then got off the bench and walked off, leaving a stunned Asuka behind.

"Freakazoid…" Asuka muttered as she hopped off the bench, stunned at the girl's rudeness.

Well, perhaps it had been for the best, the Second Child mused. She had definitely found something strangely unsettling about Ayanami.

Before she could soothe her bruised ego further, the cell phone in her pocket began to ring. Feeling both anxiety and anticipation shoot through her, she quickly pulled it out of her pocket.

Sure enough, NERV was calling. The Seventh Angel was on its way.

* * *

"The recent battle against the Fifth Angel severely damaged Tokyo-3's intercept system; only twenty nine percent of the repairs have been completed to this point. Therefore, we are going to forward deploy and intercept the target, right at the water's edge. Units One and Two will engage in a coordinated assault at the moment the Angel makes landfall in a series of waves. In other words, get in close and take turns!" Misato ordered the Children as the two Evangelions were deposited on the coast by a pair of massive EVA carriers.

"This sucks," Asuka complained as a crane inserted an umbilical cable into her EVA, putting her on external power. "My first real battle in Japan, and I don't get to handle it solo! Two on one's not a fair fight."

Unsurprisingly, a window labeled FROM MC-01 opened on her HUD. "Asuka, this isn't a game," Misato said. "We don't want to give the Angels a fair fight."

"I guess," she conceded, knowing she couldn't really argue the point.

Still, she knew it was going to be a lot more difficult to prove that she didn't need the Third Child if he was there fighting alongside her. And she _did_ intend to prove that; practically her entire life had been spent preparing for this war. She was _not_ going to allow some damn newbie who'd just joined NERV to outperform her and invalidate all her years of hard work and sacrifice.

A cache of Evangelion weapons was dropped from a heavy cargo plane. It landed on the beach with a small explosion of sand. Asuka quickly grabbed a progressive spear while Shinji selected a pallet rifle.

Mere moments later, the Angel burst out of the waves, like some primordial sea monster come to ravage the world of man. It looked normal enough, as Angels went, to Asuka's silent relief. The thing was mostly gray and black, basically humanoid, and with a strange, yin-yang pattern to its face.

"I'll handle this one, Shinji!" Asuka proclaimed, sending Unit Two running forward. "Cover my back!"

"What?! Asuka, wait!" Shinji sputtered back.

"Ladies first!" she retorted.

The massive form of Unit Two reached the shore line. Asuka could have just charged into the sea—her Evangelion was certainly tall enough to avoid sinking beneath the green water—but she knew that would slow down her charge. Instead, she leapt on top of a building that had been mostly submerged when the seas had risen in the wake of Second Impact. She used a line of these as stepping stones, delighting in the sensation of covering such great distance with a few graceful leaps. Thanks to her connection with EVA and her high sync ratio, she could actually feel the sea air rushing over her as she went.

At last she reached the Angel, which just seemed to stare dumbly over at her with its bony face. With a roar, Asuka brought her progressive spear down, cleaving the beast from head to crotch. The two halves of it sagged pathetically.

_There we go,_ she thought with great satisfaction. _That's the way this is _supposed _to happen._

"Well, I'll be damned," Shinji said softly.

"What do you think of _that_, Third Child?" she asked, gleefully rubbing his nose in it. "A face should be clean and elegant, without waste."

Then, as though she'd cursed herself with her boasting, the two halves of the Angel suddenly began to shiver.

They abruptly changed, shedding their skin like a snake and revealing two smaller Angels, identical to the larger one but for their size and their colors. One was green while the other one was orange.

"Mein Gott!" Asuka exclaimed, just before the pair of Angels went on the attack.

* * *

A few hours later, Asuka was leaving the most brutal debriefing she'd ever experienced and was heading up to Misato's office. After the disaster that the day had turned into, Asuka wanted nothing more than to return to her hotel room, but she'd been ordered to report to the Operations Director.

"Damn Angel," she grumbled to herself as she walked. "Couldn't have fought fair like the Third or the Fourth. The damn things had to start getting really difficult as soon as I showed up."

She eventually reached Misato's modest office and knocked on the door.

"Come in!"

The Second Child entered, then took a step back when she saw that the desk was loaded with so many papers that it almost completely obscured the woman who sat behind it. Asuka could only see the top of Misato's head.

"Mein Gott! Where did all this come from?!" Asuka exclaimed.

Misato stood so that she could be seen. "They're complaints about the battle from every paper pusher in Japan," the Ops Director explained in a rather too neutral tone.

Asuka squirmed guiltily. "So, what did you call me here for?" she asked.

"Oh, right," Misato said, and Asuka suspected that the woman had just then remembered she'd summoned her. "Asuka, you're going to be moving into my apartment with me. You're going to take some special training under my supervision."

Asuka nodded. The German knew only too well that the N2 mine the UN had used when the EVA Units had been defeated wouldn't keep the Angels down for long. Vice Commander Fuyutski had made that point abundantly clear.

"Special training?" she asked.

The idea of living with Misato, the uber-slob, didn't exactly appeal to her. But the idea of special training intrigued her so much that she was willing to ignore that.

"Yes," Misato said. "It's something Kaji suggested. It'll help you defeat the Angel."

"Well, okay then!" Asuka said, failing entirely to notice her new guardian's sly smile. "When do I move in?"

"Today," Misato answered, throwing Asuka a key, which she deftly caught. "I've already ordered that your stuff be moved to my apartment."

_Presumptuous, aren't you?_ Asuka thought but didn't say, being herself someone who knew that it was usually easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

"All right, I'll see you at home, then," she said, quickly scampering off.

* * *

When the Second Child arrived at Misato's apartment building, she found that the movers had left all of her boxes carelessly scattered about in the hallway by Misato's door.

"Lazy bums," she huffed in annoyance, opening up the door.

She walked in and was shocked to find that the inside was _not_ a disaster area, but rather as neat and tidy as anyone could reasonably ask for. Asuka wondered uncomfortably if she was somehow in the wrong apartment.

However, a quick look into the refrigerator allayed her fears. No one but Misato would keep _that_ much beer on hand.

Further exploring her new home, Asuka soon discovered the likeliest cause of the apartment's cleanliness: on the door to one of the spare bedroom's was a heart shaped plaque that read "Shinji's Lovely Suite."

She snorted a laugh after she'd deciphered the kanji the plaque was written in, wondering what sort of boy would have a heart-shaped plaque on his door. Then again, she supposed this might be Misato's doing.

The plaque aside, this introduced something of a situation for her. Did Misato expect her to live in the same apartment as the Third Child?

_Naaah!_ She decided after a moment's consideration. _Not even Misato would do that! They'll probably set Ikari up with a place somewhere else._

Feeling quite certain of this conclusion, Asuka slid open the door to Shinji's room, discovering that the kid was practically an ascetic. Aside from an old SDAT player and his minimal wardrobe, there was virtually nothing in the room to mark it as his.

It made it quite the easy task to remove his meager possessions and leave them outside the door to the room. Heck, everything he owned fit into a single box.

This chore completed, Asuka began the much more extensive task of moving her own things inside, zipping back and forth between her new room and the small mountain of her boxes that dwelled in the hallway outside Misato's apartment.

Unfortunately, she ran out of room halfway through and had to start stacking boxes in the living room.

"Why are Japanese rooms so small, anyway?" she wondered aloud.

Okay, so she was a packrat. She admitted it. So far as the eccentricities a fourteen-year-old pilot of a giant biomechanical engine of death might have went, she thought that hers ranked pretty low on the weirdness scale.

_I'll have to sort it all out later and have the junk put into storage,_ she thought with annoyance.

Eventually, she had all her stuff inside the apartment. With a small sigh of satisfaction, the Second Child raised a hand to palm the sweat off her brow…only to realize there was none.

_Okay, that's weird,_ she thought. She'd been sure that she would need a shower after moving all her stuff inside, but she was still as cool as a cucumber. Not only that, but she realized that she wasn't the least bit tired.

Strange occurrences, none of which merited much attention by themselves, were starting to pile up. Asuka felt worry creep into her; if something was abnormal with her health, NERV would have her out of the entry plug faster than a speeding bullet. She shuddered at the very thought.

Suddenly, she heard the door open, jarring her from her worries.

"I'm home!" Shinji called, then added, in a softer voice, "Not that there's anyone here to hear that, of course…"

The Second Child immediately swung into battle mode, her disquieted expression vanishing behind a scowl. She would _not_ show weakness to the competition.

The Third Child released a cry as he realized that some changes had been made to the apartment since he'd last been there, then he spotted Asuka. "What in the blazes are you doing here?!"

_Geeze, didn't Misato tell him about this?_ Asuka wondered.

She supposed she should explain, but seeing the invincible Third Child looking confused and dismayed made the opportunity just _too_ good to pass up.

"What are you _still_ doing here?" she responded.

"Still doing here?" he echoed.

She nodded. "You're being dumped for the new model," she said smugly. "Of course, it makes perfect sense given my far superior capabilities. Though I'd much rather be living with Kaji!"

Shinji just went over to where she'd left his meager things.

"Hey, why are Japanese rooms so small, anyway? I could barely get half my stuff into my new room!" Asuka said. "And why aren't there any locks on these doors? It's weird!"

"The Japanese way is to consider the needs of others before one's own."

Asuka and Shinji both turned to see that the Ops Director had returned to the apartment. The purple haired woman was carrying a small boom box on her shoulder.

"Misato!" Shinji and Asuka said simultaneously.

"You two are going to get along _real_ well," Misato said, with a glint in her eyes that the Second Child didn't like one bit.

"Huh?" the two EVA pilots asked.

"This is part of your new training," Misato said.

"Say what?!" they demanded.

"Come on into the kitchen, and I'll explain everything to you," their guardian said.

The two EVA pilots did, and the Ops Director soon began to lay out the plan for destroying the Seventh Angel. The special training the woman had spoken of earlier was a series of intensive teamwork drills with the Third Child.

_Son of a bitch,_ Asuka swore silently.

It was things like this that forced her to remember that while Misato might act like a drunk, perverted party girl, there was a damn good reason why Katsuragi was NERV Central's top tactician. The woman could be crafty like a fox when she wanted to be.

_She didn't even lie to me,_ the Second Child thought, still furious about how deftly she'd been played. _She just left out most of the details, and I went along with her plan, with practically no questions asked._

"In other words, an attack on both halves by the two EVA's with perfectly synchronized timing," Misato finished her briefing. "Coordination between the two of you will be vital to the success of the mission. To that end, the two of you will live together from now on."

Asuka let out a cry of dismay. "No way!" she exclaimed. "A boy and a girl are not supposed to live under the same room after the age of seven!"

She'd had enough problems with crazy perverts in Germany to want to so blatantly invite them here. The combination of her looks and local celebrity had guaranteed that much. And while NERV security kept most of her loopier admirers safely at bay, a Lieutenant Colonel's son had once managed to sneak into her room one night when she was thirteen. The nutcase had just barged into her bedroom while she was asleep, and had then proceeded to simply watch her until she woke up and screamed for security.

It still freaked her out a little to contemplate what he could have done to her while she was soundly asleep.

So she did _not_ want to share an apartment with her male rival, thank you very much.

"The Angel is currently regenerating itself," Misato said, in a tone of voice that made it clear she was unwilling to be moved. "It will begin its assault in six days. We need to be ready by then."

"But that's impossible!" Asuka groaned, easily able to imagine how difficult it would be to synchronize with someone she'd met only days ago.

"We have a way of making it possible," Misato said, holding up an audio tape. "We'll choreograph the master attack pattern to this music. This should allow you to work in sync and totally destroy the Angel. We attack in six days."

_Oh Gott, I'm going to die dancing,_ Asuka thought.

* * *

Four days later, Misato was less than pleased with how things were progressing. She had thought that her gambit of threatening to replace Asuka with Rei had managed to make the Second Child get serious. Even if Asuka had realized, upon later reflection, that the threat had been an empty one, the Ops Director knew that the German had been pissed off enough that she now felt she _had_ to succeed at this.

Or so she had thought.

"Asuka, you're going way too fast!" Shinji exclaimed as he fell down and the dance mat machine they were using flashed an error message.

"I'm going as slowly as I can!" the redhead snapped. "You have to speed up!"

The purple haired woman raised an eyebrow. There was no way in hell the German was doing the routine as slowly as she could; the girl's arms and legs had been a blur as she'd moved. If anything, Asuka must have been going as _fast_ as she could, in an effort to leave Shinji in the dust.

"Asuka, stop trying to show how much quicker you are than Shinji and get serious," Misato said sternly.

The Second Child grit her teeth, on the verge of exploding with rage. She _was_ moving as slowly as possible, but Shinji's movements seemed to be getting more sluggish every time they went through the routine.

_But of course it can't be the perfect Third Child's fault,_ she thought acidly as she prepared herself for another go on the stupid dance mat.

Unbeknownst to her, all the trips across the reviled dance mat were doing wonders for her coordination, which the awakening of her father's legacy within her was badly throwing off.

She might have appreciated it if she'd known what it was doing for her. As it was, she simply grit her teeth and continued to bear it, her pride mandating that she get this right before the appointed time.

* * *

"Pull it together, Asuka," she whispered to her reflection in Misato's bathroom mirror.

The haggard face with the bloodshot eyes that stared back at her didn't look at all pulled together, unfortunately.

After a whole _lot_ of doing, she and Shinji had finally managed to do the routine on the dance mat in perfect synch yesterday. Misato had finally declared them ready to face the Angel, and Asuka had been looking forward to a good night's rest, even if she had to sleep on the floor and next to Shinji.

Unfortunately, someone up there apparently hated her, because the dreams had come back.

_"Asuka? You must eat, or that girl over there will make fun of you."_

_"Mom! Please don't stop being my mom!"_

_"Die with me, Asuka…"_

"Enough!" she hissed, forcing all those memories back to the very depths of her mind, where they belonged.

But they'd claw their way out again. They always did, usually picking the absolute worst time, like last night, or waiting until she finally dared to hope she was free of them at last.

"Asuka!" Misato called. "Come on, we have to get to the base!"

"I'm coming!" she barked back.

She took a deep breath, and with considerable effort, put her mask back, forcing a mild scowl onto her face. She just hoped nobody would realize how tired she was.

* * *

Finally, the moment was nearly upon them. Both Shinji and Asuka sat within their entry plugs, just waiting for the order to move out.

Asuka was feeling a bit better. The anticipation of the battle was causing her body to release her old friend adrenaline into her system, which was doing a good job of keeping her tiredness back.

She opened a communications link with Unit One. "Ready, Shinji?" she asked. "Remember, full power, and stick to the routine."

"I know that," he said, sounding rather testy. "This'll all be over in 62 seconds."

_Ha, he's nervous,_ Asuka thought, willing to take whatever satisfaction she could get at the moment.

Of course, she was nervous, too, but at least she wasn't showing it. Or at least, she hoped she wasn't.

"The Angel is within range!" she heard Aoba announce over the radio.

"Launch the EVA's!" Misato ordered. "Commence the attack!"

The umbilical cables detached from their Evangelions. What they had planned wouldn't take long, and the power lines could only serve as a dangerous hindrance. The electromagnetic catapults fired, sending Units One and Two rocketing toward the surface.

The restraints that usually held the Evangelions to the catapult sleds had been left off, so when they reached ground level, the force of inertia kept them going upwards.

Then the music started, and the training the two pilots had eaten and breathed for over a week kicked in. Asuka found herself acting and reacting almost without thinking; a week from now, she would probably fall over herself if she tried to do this, but right now, it was automatic, coming as easily as breathing.

She smiled at the fact that she was actually doing it, barely taking notice of how she was shooting blasts of antimatter from the type twenty positron rifle her Unit Two currently held. For that 62 seconds, Asuka felt as strong and graceful as she ever had.

After what seemed like much less than a minute, the routine reached its crescendo. The two Evangelions kicked the two sub-Angels, sending them crashing into one another and causing them to begin to merge back into their larger gray form.

The two war machines didn't give it a chance to recover. They leapt into the air, sailing toward the enemy that had so humiliated them, each with one massive leg extended.

The EVA's size five hundred feet crashed into the Angel's twin cores with an ungodly amount of force behind them. The Angel went sliding backwards, digging an immense trench into the ground as it was pushed across the city and into the hills surrounding Tokyo-3. The cores cracked and began to glow with bright white light…

And a massive explosion erupted, powerful enough to create a huge crater in the ground. It was the Angel's final attempt to destroy its enemies.

And it failed…mostly.

Asuka ejected her plug and groaned as she opened the hatch, then let out a cry of dismay as she realized the undignified tangle of limbs that the two Evangelions had ended up in.

_Gott damn it!_ She thought.

The battle had been so amazing, but now everyone was going to remember _this_ when they thought about it! She could already hear them snickering back at headquarters.

Gritting her teeth, she quickly opened a compartment on her EVA, revealing a phone. She stabbed the button labeled "01" with her finger and waited for Shinji to pick up.

"Hello?"

"You idiot!" she shouted. "How could you totally screw up like that?!"

"Wh-what?!" he stammered. "It's not my fault you missed the last step!"

"_I_ missed the last step!" Asuka roared, her already inflamed temper only growing hotter. "What were you doing up so late last night, anyway?!"

"Image training for today's battle!" Shinji retorted.

"Oh, imagine training, I'm sure," Asuka said sarcastically. "You were doing image training, just like you didn't try and kiss me while I was sleeping!"

"You were awake?!"

Asuka's eyes widened. She'd just been taking a random shot in the dark in her fury. She hadn't believed he had actually done such a thing.

And just when she'd started to think that the kid might not be a crazy pervert, that he could control himself around her.

"You tried to kiss me?! Eww! I wasn't serious, baka hentai!" she exclaimed.

"But I didn't!" he protested. "I stopped!"

"You're crazy!"

"What about you?" Shinji snapped. "Calling out for your mother in your sleep!"

_Oh shit, I was talking in my sleep?_ Asuka thought, suddenly feeling a wave of embarrassment sweeping over her.

Which she decided, as usual, to cover up with a storm of anger. "YOU PERVERT!"

* * *

It was late afternoon by the time the immediate aftermath of the battle was dealt with, but finally the EVA Units were returned to NERV, as were the pilots, and the debriefing was done with. The pilots were at last free to go.

"Asuka, Shinji and I are heading home," Misato announced. "You coming?"

"No, thanks. I plan on catching a different ride home," Asuka said, rubbing her hands together.

While the end of the battle had been disappointingly inglorious, it _had_ still been a victory, and victories should be celebrated. Hopefully, Kaji would be of a like mind and would take her out to dinner for just that purpose.

Misato looked at her like she could read the redhead's mind and smirked slightly. "All right, Asuka," she said. "Call if you're going to be out late."

Asuka agreed, then headed off, looking for her previous guardian. She went first to the small office that Kaji had been given, but the long haired man wasn't there. After that, she sought out Akagi, who could barely be bothered to tell the Second Child that she hadn't seen Kaji lately.

She made inquiries of a few more people, but it soon became clear the Kaji had just disappeared. She wandered into one of the lesser used hallways and then, checking to ensure no one was around, released a sigh of disappointment and allowed her shoulders to slump. So far, absolutely nothing was going as she had expected.

_Come on, it's still early in the game,_ she thought.

That was true, but it didn't do much good to her now, standing alone in a random hallway.

Her watch beeped, and Asuka looked at it, then cursed in German as she saw the time. The last bus going her way would be leaving any minute; if she didn't catch it, she'd have to walk back to Misato's apartment.

The German rushed out of headquarters, ran up the great escalator that led out of the Geofront, and then emerged onto the street level.

Just in time to see her bus pulling away.

"Gott damn it!" Asuka shouted. "Can nothing go right today?"

The logical thing to do would have been to start walking home, or to go back to headquarters and get Section Two to drive her home. However, Asuka didn't feel like doing the logical thing. She felt like catching her damn bus.

So she took off running after it, even though it was starting to truly build up speed. She was supposed to be the fastest runner in the school, after all, maybe she could catch it.

She felt wind gust around her, and the world around her again became a blur, and…she realized she had lost track of the bus.

Asuka came to an abrupt halt and looked around. She gasped as she spotted her target.

It was three blocks _behind_ her.

"No way," she breathed, and looked down at her hands.

There was simply no denying it any longer: something was happening to her. Something big.

* * *

Author's Notes: And here we have the first real chapter of Asuka's SOE2 story. Asuka is, of course, pretty much exactly the same person that she was in canon here, and that person isn't a pleasant one. However, I tried my best to get behind her eyes (something I admittedly find very challenging) and to show what's going on with her behind the angry and arrogant fronts she tends to put up. I feel like I'm walking a fine line, because I don't want her to look weak or paranoid or anything. Hopefully this makes her…well, probably not terribly likable, but at least a bit easier to understand.

Animefan29, I'm definitely going to include ice breath, though I'm not sure how much use Asuka will actually get out of it. I happen to think it's a really cool power.

Neferius, I think Asuka is part American, but since she was raised in Germany, culturally, she's German, so she really couldn't be expected to fight for the American way. But this is, as you said, pretty much beside the point.

Binaroid, I have no plans for the legion.

Rock-Slash, in regards to your points 1) I will try to do the best I can to keep the ladies distinguishable. 2) In regards to character bashing, I called dibs on Asuka's story back when a second SOE series was just an idle idea orionpax09 and I were tossing about, just so someone who doesn't hate her would write her second SOE story. 3) Given the list of atrocities Gendo has committed, I tend to think of him as pretty much irredeemable. Honestly, I think he'll have a shot at some measure of redemption in a grand total of one of these stories. 4) It's true that Shinji's not the only male in Eva, but I am, to an extent, trying to mirror the original SOE-verse, which means that almost all the pairings are with Shinji. 5) I don't have to put anything in the character selector, but why wouldn't I?

Konous the grey, I _did_ not think about Hamilton giving his own sperm to Kyoko, but now that you've brought it up, I keep finding myself picturing this super nerdy version of Asuka…yet I can't quite figure out how to use that in an omake. Thanks a lot. Really. :P

Anyway, thanks to all my readers and reviewers, and to my beta reader. Now for a little fun.

* * *

Omakes

Rejected Heroes (part two)

"Oh, hello again. Back for more looks at the super heroes Asuka might have been but isn't, huh?" Mike313 greeted the readers cheerfully. "We're glad to have you back, aren't we, Asuka?"

"Thrilled," Asuka answered, sarcasm dripping from her voice.

"Now, when I first started discussing the idea of a DC based SOE-verse with orionpax, he was pretty keen on having Asuka retain the demonic connection," the author said.

"He would be," Asuka grumbled.

"Asuka, be nice."

"Hmph."

"Anyway, orionpax suggested Asuka be Raven, daughter of the demon Trigon, in the new SOE-verse," the writer said.

Suddenly, Asuka's normal clothes were replaced by a black leotard and a blue cloak with a hood that covered much of her face. "The hell?!" she spat. "Damn it, I am tired of being your freaking little dress up—!"

A huge, black mushroom cloud suddenly stretched up into the sky.

Mike313 coughed, somehow unharmed by the massive explosion. "And that's why I rejected that," he said, as Asuka resumed her normal appearance. "Unchecked emotion causes Raven's powers to go off against her will, so Asuka would probably blow up Tokyo-3 in less than a day with her powers."

"Hey!"

"Plus, Raven's all dark and broody, which just isn't Asuka," the author added. "However, since Orion is the creator of the SOE-verse and all, I decided to see if I could honor his desire to have Asuka actually be a 'demon girl.' I thought of other demonic entities within the DC universe, trying to find one appropriate to combine with Asuka, and that could really get the creative juices flowing."

"I don't like where this is going…" Asuka groaned.

"Eventually, I thought, how about Etrigan?" the writer said.

Asuka looked at herself fearfully, but nothing happened. "Whew…"

"The incantation please, Asuka," Mike said.

"No!"

"Do it, or I'll make you a female Hector Hammond next."

Asuka shuddered. "All right, all right," she growled. "Gone! Gone! The form of man…"

She then paused. "Form of man?! I'm a damned woman!"

Mike sighed. "Just alter the spell somehow if it bothers you that much."

"Fine," Asuka grumbled. "The form of woman is now gone! Rise, the demon Etrigon!"

Orange flames suddenly surrounded the redhead, and when they had gone, in her place stood a feminine version of the orange skinned, red eyed demon from Hell.

"It's Etri_gan_, not Etri_gon_, Asuka," Mike313 said dryly.

"My errors I shall not allow you to tell, I just needed to work that stupid spell!" Asuka snapped.

"Right…actually, in all fairness, I _think_ the demon's name was pronounced that way in an episode of Batman: The Animated Series, but it's been forever since I've seen it, so I'm not sure," the author said.

"Ha! You see that I was in the right! Soon I'll give you a horrid fright!" Asuka chortled.

"Yeah, sure, whatever. Anyway, as you can see, Etrigan rhymes, which would become a pain in the ass to write very quickly," the author continued. "In fact, it's kind of a pain in the ass to write already."

Asuka suddenly released a roar and breathed a column of hell fire into the air. "For using me as your little toy, you shall be the first that I destroy!" she shouted, rounding on the author.

"The form of demon is now gone, release the might of Etrigon!" Mike yelled.

Asuka abruptly reverted back to human form. "Damn it," she grumbled sullenly. "I didn't think you'd come up with a counter spell that fast."

"I figured," the author said. "Fortunately for you, I have only one rejected concept left."

Asuka just groaned.

_To be concluded in rejected heroes, part three…_

* * *

Medical Mishap

"You want blood?" Asuka asked, knowing the routine by now.

"Yes," Yamaguchi said. "Don't worry, I'm very good at this."

"Mm," Asuka grunted noncommittally, holding out her arm.

The physician tied a rubber strip around Asuka's arm, causing the blue veins to become readily visible beneath the skin. She sterilized a spot, and then tried to puncture Asuka's skin, but the needle stubbornly refused to penetrate.

_The hell?_ The German wondered, feeling unreasonably nervous as she watched a doctor fail to do something that should be routine.

"I thought you said you were good at this," Asuka said.

"I'll make this work, damn it," the physician said through gritted teeth, clearly frustrated.

Asuka just looked down as Yamaguchi pressed the needle into her arm as hard as she could. Amazingly, this didn't hurt the Second Child at all.

Suddenly, the needle snapped, and the part that had broken off went ricocheting across the room. It bounced off a piece of medical equipment, then the wall, then it went sailing out the door.

"Arggh!"

Both Asuka and the doctor rushed out into the hallway to see who the needle had struck. Their eyes widened when they saw Gendo Ikari laying on the floor. The needle had gotten the man right in the jugular, creating a large tear. There was already a pool of blood beneath him.

Yamaguchi slowly kneeled down and inspected the man. "He's dead!"

"Hmm, you know, I don't know much about him, but my super women's intuition is telling me that this is actually a good thing," Asuka said.

The doctor gave her an incredulous look. "What?"

"Uh, never mind…"

(A/N: I did _not_ make up "super women's intuition." In some long ago comic, Superboy was somehow changed into a girl, and the change caused him to develop this power. If you don't believe me, check out superdickery (dot) com. The proof is located in the "Stupor Powers" section.)


	3. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC Comics or anything associated with it, and I am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Two:** From Blue Sky to Red Magma

For several seconds after her impossible surge of speed, Asuka just stood there, gaping back at the bus she'd had so easily left behind. Even when it rumbled past her, she just stood there, stupefied by what had just happened—by what she'd just done.

A few people who were inside the bus gave odds looks at the gaijin who was just standing on the sidewalk with a strangely shocked expression on her face. None of them had noticed her rocketing ahead of their bus.

Asuka didn't take notice of them. She was still reeling.

The Second Child should have been distressed by this development; it confirmed her suspicions that there was something very strange happening to her and thus greatly increased the odds of NERV taking her out of the entry plug.

She would have been distressed, too, if she had had any thoughts inside her head at the moment besides the one that was currently there.

_Mein Gott! I have super speed!_

A slow smile spread over her face, her surprised excitement temporarily blotting out any concerns. She turned to look ahead again…and then she disappeared in a blur of blue, white, and auburn.

Asuka ran through the streets of Tokyo-3 with no destination in mind, just luxuriating in the thrill of the speed she now had. The wind rushed around her, blowing back her mane of red hair. She shouldn't have been able to dodge people and obstacles while moving at the speed she was going, but she could and it was effortless.

Delighted laughter bubbled out of her. She hadn't allowed herself to laugh so freely in years, fearing it would make her appear childish, but at the moment she couldn't help herself. Her laughs and the great gust of wind she left in her wake were the only things that the people in the streets were able to notice as she passed them by.

Only a few seconds of running brought Asuka from the rough center of the city all the way out to the slums that sat on the edges of Tokyo-3. The redhead's eyes widened as she spotted a great pit in the road before her. It was apparently part of some construction project, since there was a lot of heavy equipment nearby. Yellow tape and numerous caution signs were all over the place, warning off cars.

The sensible thing would have been to stop or to detour around the construction site. However, Asuka's system was far too inundated by endorphins and adrenaline for her to do the sensible thing.

Instead of halting or turning, she jumped.

"Woooo-hoooo-hoooo!" Asuka heard herself cry as she went hurling into the sky, her legs kicking in the air.

She kept going up and up and up, feeling like she would never return to the Earth. Already, she was above the roofs of some of the smaller buildings and she was still going strong.

Her euphoria was not to last, however. Her eyes widened and her happiness was instantly snuffed out by terror as she realized that she was headed right for one of the taller buildings in the slums, a towering skyscraper that looked like it had been abandoned long ago.

She screamed, instinctively putting her arms up to shield her head and closing her eyes, for all the good it would do her.

There was a loud crash from all around her, and then suddenly everything was quiet. She could feel that she had stopped moving.

Silly though it was, Asuka was afraid to open her eyes. Part of her believed that she'd find herself grievously injured when she did, even though she was in no pain, or perhaps even that she'd discover she was dead.

Yet there was nothing to do but take a deep breath and face whatever it was that had happened. Asuka opened her eyes…and then gasped at what she saw.

For one thing, there was a large hole that went clear through the abandoned tower, which hadn't been there a few moments ago. Asuka had clearly created it by crashing through the building, and yet she didn't have a scratch on her.

And as if that wasn't shocking enough by itself, she was now floating in midair just outside the hole she'd made in the decrepit tower. Asuka looked down at the street far below, naked disbelief written all over her features. Part of mind dimly worried about people looking up her dress, even though she knew she was far too high up for anyone to see anything.

All of a sudden, her shock collapsed, and she again broke out into a broad smile. Throwing one arm up above her head, the Second Child suddenly took off, rocketing up into the sky.

"This is even better than the running!" she exclaimed as she broke through the cloud layer.

Once above the clouds, she allowed herself to hover for a few moments, just looking down at the world far below her and soaking in the unobstructed light of the sun. Asuka could feel that the air was cold up at this high elevation, but it didn't bother her in the slightest. Everything was silent save for the sound of the wind, giving her an almost profound feeling, as though she were in a cathedral or some other sacred place.

After a few moments, Asuka began to soar through the clouds again, and she remained up in the sky for a long, long time.

* * *

Yet one must always return to Earth from the heavens at some point, and even Asuka Langley Soryu was no exception to the rule. Eventually she realized how much time was passing her by, and she returned to the ground, fortunately having little difficulty finding a place to land where no one was around to see her.

From there, she walked back to Misato's apartment, going into deep thought as the exhilaration that had so soundly gripped her earlier began to fade.

Not only was there something unusual going on with her, but she had super powers. There was absolutely no way to deny it, she thought as she mentally recounted everything she'd done that day, trying to figure out just what abilities she had exactly.

_I can fly, obviously,_ Asuka thought as she entered the apartment building, a faint smile appearing on her face as she recalled her recent experience in the air. _And I have super speed, too. Also, I must be a hell of a lot tougher than normal to have come out of crashing through a building without the slightest injury. That would explain why that doctor had trouble drawing my blood._

The Second Child barely noticed it when she reached her floor, thoroughly on auto-pilot.

It then occurred to her that she'd almost managed to jump over that building, which was obviously something ordinary people could never hope to do. In fact, she thought that maybe she could have leapt over the tall building in a single bound if her jump had had a steeper arc to it.

_Does super jumping count as a power?_ She wondered as she walked into the apartment, shedding her shoes.

"You're home!" Shinji exclaimed, emerging from the hallway. "Misato and I were starting to…"

He trailed off as he looked at her, and Asuka frowned. "What?" she demanded, secretly afraid that some visible sign of her new powers had developed.

What would she do if her eyes started glowing or she turned green or something?

"What happened to you?" Shinji asked. "Your hair's all messed up, and you look like you're wet."

Asuka reached back and ran a hand across her mane of hair, finding that it felt like a rat's nest. Then she looked down and saw that her school uniform did look rather damp. Such were the inevitable results of flying at high speed through the air and often going through clouds, Asuka realized belatedly.

Seeing that the Third Child actually looked genuinely worried about her rather than mocking, she bit back her first impulse, which was to snap at him that it was none of his business.

"Uh, it was really windy out today, and I got rained on," Asuka said instead.

He frowned. "Rained on?" Shinji asked. "I didn't realize that there was any storm or anything today."

"Well, I wouldn't call it a storm," Asuka said. "It just sort of drizzled a little. Heck, the clouds didn't even completely block out the sun. It was kinda weird."

Shinji's frown didn't smooth out, and it was clear he didn't quite buy her story. "Are you sure you're alright?"

"Yes, already!" Asuka snapped, her minimal supply of patience expended. "Geeze, what's with the third degree?"

"I'm sorry," Shinji said at once, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. "Anyway, dinner should be on the table in just a couple of minutes."

"Good," she said. "I'm going to go change. Don't you dare peek." She added in a half-teasing, half-threatening tone.

Asuka found herself oddly annoyed when he didn't respond to this, but she quickly put it out of her mind as she went to her room. Once inside, she traded the damp school uniform for a pair of shorts and a simple shirt, then quickly brushed her hair until it looked presentable again. This done, she ventured back out into the kitchen where Shinji was laying down plates of food.

"Hello, Asuka," Misato drawled, emerging from her own bedroom only moments after the Second Child.

The German tried not to scowl at her guardian when she noticed that Misato clearly wasn't wearing a bra beneath the yellow tank top she wore.

_Honestly, prancing around like that when there's a teenage boy in the house,_ Asuka thought. _It's completely indecent. Besides, it's not as if she needs to go around without underwear to get male attention._

Not that she was at all jealous of Misato's impressive endowments. No, most definitely not. She was just scandalized by the older woman's antics. Really.

"So, where have you been?" the Ops Director asked.

The purple haired woman sounded like she was barely curious as she asked this question, but Asuka wasn't fooled, not after she had so recently been lured into the apartment with promises of "special training." She'd have to pick her response very carefully.

"I was at the mall," the redhead answered.

"And didn't buy anything?" Misato asked.

_Crap,_ Asuka thought, realizing too late the flaw in her story.

She rebounded quickly, however. "There wasn't anything worth buying," she replied. "Japanese fashion is so lame this year."

Misato seemed to accept this and nodded. "Well, you lost your Section Two detail," she chided.

"It's not my fault if that band of idiots couldn't follow a turtle around without losing track of it," Asuka replied. "A group of people that inept probably wouldn't be any help if something bad were to happen anyway."

Misato, who didn't exactly have a high opinion of Section Two herself, finally decided to let it go, and the trio was at last able to sit down to eat.

Asuka hardly tasted the food as she quickly returned to her earlier brooding. She'd always been good at both athletics and academics, and now she wondered if her powers had been responsible for it, if they'd been almost but not quite completely dormant her whole life until recently.

The Second Child reached for her water glass, then reminded herself to hold it gently, lest she break it like she'd broken so many others.

_I'm getting stronger,_ she realized all of a sudden as she took a sip. _But where did all of these abilities come from?_

Instantly, the possibility that NERV might have done something to her occurred to Asuka. However, she rejected this idea out of hand. Neither Shinji nor Ayanami had shown any signs of developing fantastic powers, and the only reason NERV would perform some crazy experiment on her and not them would be if…if she was the least valuable pilot.

_No way!_ She thought, horrified by the very idea.

Besides, she reasoned, NERV would be watching her like a hawk if they expected her to randomly manifest superpowers, not leaving her with the usual group of Section Two chuckleheads.

_Could my EVA have done it to me without NERV expecting or realizing it?_ Asuka thought next.

This seemed slightly more plausible, but it also ran into the problem of Shinji and Rei still being normal. Though her Unit Two was vastly superior to Units Zero and One, there was no reason why it should grant its pilot superpowers when the other two Evangelions didn't.

_Maybe my mother did something to me,_ Asuka mused. _I am a test tube baby, after all. But then why—_

"Asuka?" Misato spoke up, derailing the Second Child's train of thought. "Are you all right? You're so quiet."

Asuka blinked. Since Shinji was hardly a big talker, it was generally her and Misato who carried mealtime conversations. With her mouth shut, the table had been conspicuously silent. She hadn't even noticed, though.

"I'm fine," she answered at once. "I was just thinking."

Misato looked like she wanted to pry, but all she said was, "Oh."

Asuka tried to start talking, but her mind wandered and she couldn't keep up her usual level of chatter. Once dinner was over, she retreated straight to her room, her head still spinning.

As soon as she had slid the door shut, Asuka flopped down on her bed and let out a long breath, what had happened to her still sinking in.

She wasn't the first girl to display rather unique abilities, and NERV had already shown that they weren't exactly fond of such women. Indeed, NERV didn't like such women at _all_. If it came out that she had joined their ranks, NERV might revoke her status at the Second Child. In fact, if NERV found out, they might even send her out to fight the Angels without an EVA, and give her Unit Two to someone else.

The very thought filled her with horror. She had spent the bulk of her life preparing to fight with the EVA. It defined who she was. She wasn't about to give that up because she'd developed some strange talents.

_I can't ever let NERV find out what's happening to me,_ Asuka decided at once.

She got up and walked over to her mirror and pushed her sleeve up, revealing all of her arm and shoulder. She had done her best to deny it before, but the fact was that she had put on some muscle mass. She had also gained significant tone, too.

"I guess it's not so bad," Asuka muttered.

Really, she was built like the overly perky women who bounced around in spandex and lifted weights on the morning workout shows; she was far from a hulking monster or anything. Still, she should probably find some way to explain or conceal her new physique soon, just to be on the safe side.

The Second Child sighed. Her already complicated life had just gotten a whole lot worse.

* * *

The next day, Asuka's mind couldn't have been further away from the heavy matters of her mysterious physiology. The reason for this radical change in her mood was quite simple. She was in the company of the perfect man.

"It was so nice of you to take me shopping, Kaji," she cooed, firmly latched onto the spy's arm.

The man just smiled down at her in response, which didn't exactly fill the Second Child with hope, but Asuka Langley Soryu was nothing if not tenacious.

_I wonder if he likes strong women,_ she thought, while being careful not to apply too much pressure to his arm.

Kaji patiently accompanied her as she went from store to store, picking up things for the upcoming class trip to Okinawa.

"I'm so excited about this trip," she said. "After that crazed rush of preparing to kill the Seventh Angel, I really need a break and a chance to get away from everything for a few days."

The long haired man nodded. "I can imagine," he said. "Ideally, NERV would let the pilots have a few days to wind down after every battle. Then again, in an ideal world, we wouldn't be dealing with the Angels anyway."

Asuka just made a noncommittal noise in response and began to look through a display case filled with snorkels. The Second Child visited several stores, picking up all the equipment that she felt she'd need for the trip, as well as a couple of other things that would come in handy in the near future. With that task completed, Asuka started searching for something to wear while in the warm waters off the coast of Okinawa.

"Hey, isn't this the swimsuit section?" Kaji asked nervously.

"Sure is," Asuka replied cheerfully, pulling a red and white striped bikini off the rack. "What do you think of this one?"

The unshaven man looked uncomfortable, and Asuka felt her heart leap, hoping that she'd managed to get him just a little hot and bothered.

"Don't you think you're a little young to be wearing that, Asuka?" he asked, bringing her hopes crashing down.

Not allowing her disappointment to show, Asuka just said, "Don't be a fuddy-duddy. This is what all the girls are wearing!"

_I'm not so young that I should be wearing some frilly one-piece with teddy bears on it. Why can't you understand that?_ She added silently, feeling old frustration rising up in her once again.

However, it was simply beyond Asuka to be angry at Kaji for very long, and by the time they settled into the mall food court for a snack, she had quite forgiven him.

"Hey, Kaji?" she spoke up as she played with her frozen yogurt. "Can I ask you something?"

He looked up, Asuka's uncharacteristically timid tone of voice instantly getting his full attention. "Of course," he replied.

"Do you know anything about my father?" she asked. "My biological father, I mean."

She didn't really believe that there was a man out there who had all the same powers as she was developing, who had just decided to donate sperm to a fertility clinic one day, but Asuka didn't want to leave any stone unturned. Besides, if her new powers _were_ the result of genetic tampering, the man whose DNA had sired her might have known about it, too.

Kaji's eyebrows went up slightly. "Why the sudden interest?"

With just about anyone else, Asuka knew she'd be able to sense their condescension coming off them in waves. Most adults would view such a request as the mewling of a petulant child with a chip on her shoulder who was looking for her "real Dad."

Which would, of course, have caused her to get all defensive and belligerent.

However, with Kaji, she somehow just knew that, while he may not view her as a woman yet, neither did he see her as just a stupid little kid.

"I've just been curious about where I came from and who I am recently," she said, which was technically the truth.

Kaji nodded. "Well, as you know, the identities of sperm donors are highly confidential," he said, then leaned forward in a conspiratorial manner, "but I'll see what I can find."

Asuka smiled brightly; Kaji never let the many stupid rules that existed in the world bother him much. It was one of the many things she liked about him.

"Thanks, Kaji," she said, "I really appreciate it."

He waved a hand dismissively. "It's really nothing, Asuka," he said. "But you know I can't promise you anything."

"Of course," Asuka said, even though she didn't believe for a moment that Kaji would fail to come through for her. He never had in the past, so why should he start now?

Asuka leaned back in her chair, feeling pleased. Not only had she made a little progress toward figuring out what exactly was happening to her, but she had gotten to spend the day with Kaji. Nothing could ruin this day.

* * *

"What do you mean I can't go on the trip?!" Asuka shrieked, horrified.

Elsewhere in the apartment, Pen-Pen was awoken from the pleasant nap he'd been enjoying in the bathtub. The penguin let out an indignant "wark!" that was quite audible throughout the apartment as he reluctantly got out of the tub and began to towel off. Misato and Asuka ignored him, however.

"Yup!" the purple haired woman replied, looking _much_ too cheerful so far as Asuka was concerned.

"Well, why not?!" Asuka demanded.

"It's part of your job," Misato replied, just a slight edge appearing in her voice.

"You mean I'm on permanent standby?" Asuka said, feeling her ire rising.

This was the reward she got for working her ass off to destroy the Seventh Angel, not to mention all the years and years of training she'd performed before that, _and_ her willingness to put her own life on the line to defend the rest of humanity?

"You got it!" Misato said cheerfully, not the least bit affected by Asuka's glare.

"Well what _idiot_ decided that?" Asuka snapped, wondering who exactly she needed to have a little talk with.

"This one," Misato said, and the sound of tires screeching filled Asuka's mind as her plan quickly skidded to a halt, "the Operations Planning Manager."

_Damn, why do I keep forgetting how smart this woman really is?_ Asuka wondered as she glared at Misato and weighed her options.

Quickly deciding that continuing to argue alone against Misato was _not_ the wisest of moves, Asuka turned to her only potential source of support. "Shinji! Don't you have anything to say about this?" she snapped. "Quit hiding behind that cup of tea and talk some sense into this woman! Be a man!"

Shinji put down his teacup, but that was the only part of Asuka's "request" that he followed. "Honestly, I didn't think we'd be allowed to go."

"So you're just giving up?" Asuka asked.

Shinji shrugged. "Well, yeah."

Asuka sighed theatrically. The boy couldn't even make a token effort at trying to keep NERV from arbitrarily canceling their vacation. He didn't even get the least bit upset about it, like he was okay with the organization deciding to kick him!

_He really is a spineless wimp,_ she thought.

_So why do you get so annoyed whenever he fails to try and pursue you?_ A voice in her mind whispered in response.

_Quiet you!_ Asuka snapped back.

"There's nothing more pathetic than a housebroken male," she said, dragging herself back to the present.

He frowned. "Don't talk about me like that," he said in a far too mild tone.

"Why do we always have to be the ones waiting for the Angels to come?" Asuka demanded, turning her attention back to Misato. "Any good officer knows that the best defense is a good offense, so why can't _we_ be the ones to attack _them_?"

"If we could do that, we certainly would," Misato said. "Look, why don't you think of it as a chance to get ahead for a change? Or did you think that I don't know about these report cards?" she asked, holding up a pair of zip drives, causing both Asuka and Shinji to wince.

"The school sent them directly to my terminal, and I am _very_ disappointed with the both of you!" Misato added, now clearly on the attack.

Asuka resisted the urge to scream. She didn't _need_ an education from a Japanese junior high school; she had a degree in engineering from the University of Berlin-2. So unless the demand for _German engineers_ up and died one day, she was pretty much set.

Besides, the only reason she wasn't getting top marks in school was because she wasn't very good at reading kanji. She knew all the material; she just couldn't read the tests.

_Of course, it'll be a cold day in hell before those arguments carry any water with anyone here,_ she thought bitterly.

"Those things don't mean anything! The old fashioned numeric grading system the schools here use is stupid," Asuka said instead.

"Look, all I'm asking is that you do some make up work over the break," Misato said. "You don't have to spend every waking moment on it. In fact, you should probably head over to the NERV rec. center. They have a pool there, so you can at least swim, even if it's not in Okinawa."

There was a certain tone of finality to Misato's words that let Asuka know that no more arguments would be tolerated. Not daring to defy that, Asuka just huffed and stormed to her room.

Deciding that she needed to do something to cool down, the Second Child thought this might be a good time to implement the plan she'd come up with to prevent anyone from getting suspicious about how toned she'd gotten lately. Going through the bags of her purchases from the mall, she eventually found her new workout clothes. Quickly putting them on, she then ventured back into the kitchen. Misato was no longer there, but the Third Child was still present, quietly drinking his tea at the kitchen table.

_Perfect,_ Asuka thought.

"Shinji," she said.

He looked up, blinking in surprise as he saw her wearing a baggy gray sweatshirt and pants.

"We're going to the gym," Asuka proclaimed. "Come on."

"Huh?" was his articulate response.

"I want to workout, and I need a spotter," Asuka said.

Of course, what she really needed was a witness, but she wasn't about to tell him that.

"You've been elected," she continued. "Now come on!"

With a sigh, Shinji got up, put his cup and saucer into the sink, and then followed Asuka out of the apartment.

* * *

Not much later, the two arrived in the gym contained within the NERV rec. center. It was a large facility, and much better equipped than the one in their school, which Shinji had foolishly assumed was their destination when they'd set out. As an added bonus, there were very few NERV employees using the place, which meant the two pilots almost had it all to themselves.

"Okay," Shinji said, "we're here, now…"

He trailed off as Asuka began to strip off her sweat suit, revealing the red spandex shorts and matching jogging bra she had on underneath. She casually tossed the gray garments aside so they were hung on a piece of workout equipment, then turned back to see Shinji gaping stupidly at her, his cheeks flushed.

"Put your eyes back in your head, baka," she commanded with a smirk and he immediately began to stammer out apologies, which only caused her smirk to widen.

_I am enjoying his attentions far too much,_ she thought, which immediately caused her mood to sour somewhat.

Forcefully putting aside the question of why she kept feeling…something for the Third Child, Asuka turned to look at the room full of equipment. While she had certainly worked out before, the Second Child had never actually done weight training. Fortunately, most of the equipment looked easy enough to use.

Heading over to a very simple piece of equipment that was clearly meant to be used for bench presses, Asuka slid a few weight plates onto either side of the bar. She wasn't quite sure just how much a normal teenage girl should be able to lift, so she kept it light, and then lay down on the bench.

"Okay, baka, now your job is to make sure I don't drop the bar on myself if I get tired," she instructed.

Shinji, though hardly a gym rat, knew the function that a spotter was supposed to provide. However, he didn't bother to tell Asuka this, instead nodding and getting into position.

Asuka lifted the bar off the rack and then smoothly performed fifteen repetitions. It didn't feel even remotely heavy to her, but she made herself pant with phony exertion as she racked the bar again.

She must've been laying it on a little too thick, because Shinji asked, "Are you okay, Asuka?"

"I'm fine. Just need a quick breather," she said dismissively. "Hey, why don't you work out a little between my, uh, sets."

She hoped that "sets" was the right word.

_Maybe I should have researched weight lifting a little more before I tried this,_ she thought.

Fortunately, if she'd used the wrong term, the Third Child didn't seem to notice. "Um, I don't know…"

"C'mon, baka, a little exercise never hurt anybody," Asuka said. "Besides, it's not like you couldn't stand to pump a little iron, stick-boy."

Shinji's face reddened, and he wordlessly added a few plates to either side of the bar, then lay down on the bench as Asuka moved to assume the spotter's position. Thanks to having his ego slightly bruised by the redhead, he ended up with what was nearly his maximum weight on the bar, and he was just barely able to perform ten repetitions on the bench press before he stopped, sweating and panting.

"Okay," he gasped out as he got up, "your turn."

Asuka nodded, then reached to remove a couple of plates from the bar. However, she hesitated as a truly wicked idea occurred to her. If she was as strong as she thought she might be, then out-lifting the skinny Third Child would be a breeze. She could be forever lifting just a little bit more than _he_ could.

_Oh come on, is that really necessary?_ Part of her mind spoke up.

"Asuka?" Shinji spoke up, apparently confused by her hesitation.

All those weeks of listening to everyone marvel over how the incredible Third Child had defeated the Third Angel despite being a recent recruit came rushing back to her, along with the accompanying frustration of feeling like she was chasing the new guy's tail lights despite all her years of training. A wave of vindictiveness overcame her, and she decided it was time that the mighty Shinji Ikari became acquainted with the oh-so-pleasant feeling of constantly being stuck behind someone that you felt you should, by all rights, be able to surpass easily.

She added a ten pound plate to either side of the bar.

"Asuka?" Shinji spoke up nervously as she lay down on the bench, clearly fearing that she had bitten off more than she could chew.

She lifted the bar, again finding it felt as light as a feather. "Yes, Shinji?" she asked sweetly.

"…never mind."

Asuka nodded and this time did twenty reps, feeling a savage sense of satisfaction at showing the Third Child that she was number one in something, even if that something wasn't EVA piloting.

The rest of their time at the gym passed in this manner, with Shinji exhausting himself and Asuka pretending to do the same. However, she still felt fresh and full of energy when they decided to stop for the day, and she couldn't help but wonder just how strong she really was. The whole time, she hadn't felt the slightest strain.

The two headed to their respective locker rooms, showered, then met up just outside the NERV rec. center, ready to head home.

"Uh, do you do this often?" Shinji asked awkwardly as they walked through the halls of NERV.

"All the time!" Asuka lied with a cheeky grin. "Couldn't you tell?"

"Yeah," he replied, softly, turning his gaze downwards.

Asuka held back a sigh; the Third Child could do a _very_ good impression of a kicked puppy if he wanted. "Don't let it get you down, Shinji," she said. "You couldn't be expected to keep up with me!"

Shinji smirked very slightly in wry amusement. "I guess not," he replied. "Say, can I ask you a question?"

She shrugged. "Sure, I guess."

"Why did you go so nuts when you found out that we can't go to Okinawa?" he asked nervously.

Asuka released a breath of air through her lips, making a small "pff" sound. It was the closest thing to a sigh she was willing to do in his presence.

"Because it's probably just NERV being stupid," Asuka said. "As usual."

Shinji frowned. He could understand why Asuka would be displeased about being barred from going on the school trip (he himself was actually rather relieved, since he couldn't swim), but he couldn't see how NERV's actions could be called stupid in this case.

"What do you mean?" he asked. "What's stupid about it?"

Asuka thought silently for a moment, quickly deciding to bestow one of her pearls of wisdom upon Shinji as a reward for accompanying her. Besides, it was something he would probably figure out for himself anyway.

"Let me explain something to you, Third," she began, adopting a positively sagely tone.

Shinji rolled his eyes at this. Fortunately, Asuka failed to notice.

"We…" she gestured to herself and then to him, "are _Evangelion pilots_. To call us crucial to the success of NERV would be the understatement of the century, because without a pilot, an EVA is just one of the world's most expensive, broken wind-up toys. If something happens to one of us—if some psycho manages to take us out, we get struck by lightning, run over by a car, _anything_—NERV gets to watch a third of their force disappear."

"Okay, so?" Shinji asked, not sure where she was going with this.

Asuka shook her head, as though she couldn't believe how naïve Shinji was. "So? Look, I don't know exactly how it works here, but back in Germany, NERV would practically cover you in bubble wrap and throw you into the basement, ensuring that the only time you ever risk your life is when the Angels show up, if you let them," she said. "I guess Misato's sort of buffered you from it—she's good like that, I have to admit—but trust me, not everyone would do that. I barely ever left the NERV base in Germany from when I was four to when I was about eight, because they were too afraid I might get hurt if I did."

"What happened when you were eight?" Shinji asked. "Did Misato become your guardian then?"

"I didn't meet Misato until I was ten," Asuka replied. "No, what happened was that I learned to throw my weight around and to stop tolerating being kept on the base like a goldfish in a bowl all the time. And it worked. Suddenly, I was allowed to go outside like a normal person, instead of locked on base like a prisoner."

Shinji nodded, Asuka's tantrum making slightly more sense in his mind now. "But the trip to Okinawa's different," he pointed out. "NERV has to keep us here. An Angel could attack at any time."

"Maybe," Asuka said, "but personally I think that NERV is better able to predict when the Angels are going to show up than they're letting on. Wouldn't surprise me if they knew where they're coming from, either."

"Why do you think that?" Shinji asked, confused.

"Oh come on," Asuka said. "NERV obviously knew that the Angels were going to come, and they knew enough about them to build the EVA's as a countermeasure. But they don't know anything about where they're coming from, or when they're going to strike? _Puh-leeze._"

Shinji had to admit she sort of had a point. His father had seemingly known when to call him to Tokyo-3, although he had cut it insanely close. How could the man have done that if he couldn't predict the Angel's actions to at least some extent?

"But why would NERV keep such a thing secret?" Shinji asked.

Asuka shrugged. "Who knows? NERV is a huge military organization, and let me tell you, military big shots love to stamp things 'top secret.' They're paranoid," she said. "Then there's the huge bureaucracy that's required to make NERV run from day to day. _Never_ underestimate the ability of bureaucracy to do stupid things, Third."

Shinji smiled slightly. "I don't think you need to work for NERV to learn _that_," he said.

Asuka actually chuckled. "Yeah, you're right about that," she agreed.

"I'm not so sure about NERV knowing these things about the Angels as well as you seem to think they do, though," Shinji said. "My father cut it extremely close when he called me to Tokyo-3 to pilot."

Asuka frowned. "What do you mean?"

Shinji shrugged. "I got here the same day the Third Angel attacked," he explained. "The thing almost stepped on me, in fact."

The Second Child's eyes widened. "Wait a minute, you first came to NERV while the city was under attack?" she asked incredulously. "And you got into Unit One and fought the Angel?"

"Um, yeah," Shinji said.

"Good god, _why_ would you climb into the EVA if you didn't know what you were doing?" Asuka asked.

"Somebody had to do it, or the Angel would have won," Shinji mumbled, suddenly feeling very bashful under Asuka's scrutiny.

"But why you?" she asked. "Why not Ayanami?"

"Ayanami was badly injured from the activation test with Unit Zero," Shinji explained. "If she'd gone into battle, she would've died."

Asuka just gaped at the Third Child for a good five seconds as the events that had transpired during the First Battle of Tokyo-3 began to fall into place to form a more complete picture.

_Why didn't anyone tell me about this?_ She wondered incredulously.

In a way, learning this actually made things worse; she'd known that the Third Child had managed to achieve a sync ratio of over forty percent during his first time in EVA, but she'd had no idea that he'd also managed to kill an Angel the first time they'd plunked him inside Unit One. It made him seem even more infuriatingly talented at something she was supposed to be the best at.

On the other hand, it did serve to explain a number of things, such as the tendency to treat him with kid gloves that she'd recently been noticing most of the NERV personnel seemed to have, as well as why he always seemed so gloomy while he was inside headquarters. It was no wonder if he'd been blackmailed into piloting!

"Asuka?" Shinji spoke up, knocking her out of her thoughts. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," she replied faintly. "Let's get back to the apartment."

Shinji nodded silently, and the two left, Asuka wondering how much more she hadn't been told.

* * *

The next day, these thoughts were far from Asuka's mind as she changed into the red and white bikini she'd purchased for the trip to Okinawa she wasn't going on. The thing was pretty much wasted at the NERV rec. center's pool, but at least Asuka could take comfort from the fact that she still looked really hot in it. Whatever it was exactly that was happening to her had changed her appearance but certainly hadn't damaged it.

_I pull off the ' fitness babe' look pretty well,_ she decided as she walked out of the women's locker room, heading into the pool area.

The First Child was quietly doing laps in the pool, while Shinji sat at one of the poolside tables. He was fully dressed in his school uniform and working at his laptop with a typically glum expression on his face.

Smirking wickedly, Asuka sauntered over to the Third Child, who hadn't realized she had entered yet.

"Hey Shinji," she greeted, "what are you doing?"

"Basic physics primer," he replied with a small sigh. "What…?"

He trailed off as he finally turned to look at her and got an eyeful of her bikini-clad form. The Third Child's face flushed, and his mouth opened and closed several times, but no words came out.

"Since I can't go to Okinawa, I figured I'd do it here," Asuka proclaimed.

Shinji's mind immediately latched onto the word "it" in the redhead's sentence and ascribed several less than pure potential ideas to the meaning behind the pronoun.

Fortunately, the stunned look remained on his face, preventing any of this from showing in his expression. "What?" he stammered out.

"Diving, silly," Asuka explained. "So, what are you having trouble with?"

"This question on thermal expansion," Shinji said, starting to regain his composure.

Which Asuka casually shattered by leaning over to observe his laptop's screen, this having the not coincidental effect of positioning her assets very close to his face. She held back a delighted smirk as she heard him release a little strangled sound.

"Thermal expansion, oh, that's kid's stuff," she said, her long fingers dancing over the keyboard as she punched in the numbers to solve the problem. "I did much harder stuff all the time when I was in college."

Shinji blinked as he looked at his screen. "You've been to college?"

Asuka nodded. "Yeah, I got my degree just a little before coming to Japan," she said, trying to make it sound like it was something that had been utterly effortless, rather than the intense, practically soul-draining labor that it actually had been.

"How is it that you can solve a difficult problem like this but can't get good grades?" Shinji asked.

Asuka sighed. "My problem isn't knowing the answer, it's reading the question. I still haven't learned all the kanji yet."

Shinji tried and failed to work up the nerve to offer to help her with that. "I see," he said instead.

"But thermal expansion isn't difficult anyway. The principle is simple: things expand when they get hot, and get smaller when they get cold. Like…if I were to warm up my breasts, do you think they'd bigger or smaller?" she asked, placing her hands over her assets as she did so.

Shinji made a little strangled sound and then blurted out, "I don't know! I don't think about that kind of thing!"

Asuka's face fell as her good mood instantly evaporated. "Such a boring little boy," she said, walking off and beginning the process of donning her scuba gear.

Though she did her best to show indifference, for some bizarre reason, her inability to get Shinji to pursue her hurt even more than her multiple failures to get Kaji to show interest.

_Ugh, what is _wrong_ with me?_ Asuka wondered in frustration.

It couldn't possibly be because he was the same age as she was; Asuka regularly found her locker packed to the bursting point with love letters from guys who were also the same age as she was. That a single teenage boy wasn't swooning shouldn't have bothered her.

Unless she maybe…kind of…sort of…liked him?

_Ew, no!_ She thought immediately, instantly delivering a flurry of mental kicks to the part of her mind that had dared to suggest something so utterly preposterous.

She felt rather sympathetic toward him now that she knew more about the circumstances of how NERV had effectively drafted him into service, but that was a very far cry from being attracted to him.

He was a nice enough person, she supposed, but he was a complete wimp and resembled not at all the kind of real man that she wanted. Really, she told herself, it simply wasn't worth getting all frustrated whenever he refused to play along with her teasing. She silently vowed to not let him affect her like that anymore.

Then she happened to glance over to him and caught him staring at Ayanami, who'd recently emerged from the pool.

"Hey Shinji!" she suddenly called, her mouth acting without consulting her brain first. "Lookie! Lookie! Back roll entry!"

With that, she let herself to fall backwards into the pool. Once beneath the surface of the water, she allowed herself a grimace. _What the hell is wrong with me?_

* * *

Meanwhile, up in a research center that was studying the Mount Asuma volcano, Captain Misato Katsuragi was having a day that was less confusing but certainly no more pleasant than the one her wards were experiencing.

"Lower the probe another two hundred meters," she commanded.

"Ma'am, you're going too deep!" a practically frantic scientist protested, though he sounded more like he was begging her to stop than anything.

"Do it," Misato ordered in a tone of voice that brooked no objections.

With a sigh, the man entered in the appropriate commands, and the mechanical probe the scientists at the station had painstakingly designed and constructed began to descend further. It wasn't long before the intense pressure formed a long fissure in even its tough hull.

"The armor is cracking under the pressure," the lead scientist warned.

"Fifty more," Misato ordered.

"Captain Katsuragi!"

"If it's destroyed, NERV will compensate you for the damages," she said. "Fifty more!"

With a sigh, he complied, lowering the probe far further down into the lava than it had ever been designed to go.

"We're monitoring a reaction," Makoto said from his place at one of the terminals.

"Start the analysis," Misato ordered.

"Right," he replied, telling the computer to get to work.

Misato watched his screen with baited breath, silently hoping that the probe would be able to hold out long enough. A moment later, a loud, unpleasant sound filled the room.

"The probe has imploded due to the extreme pressure," announced the station's AI over the loudspeaker.

"Did you get it?" Misato asked.

"Just barely," answered Makoto. "The pattern is blue. It's an Angel all right."

She nodded, then moved to address the group of scientists present. "I am issuing an A-17 special command!" she announced. "This facility is now under the command of NERV, and all the station's data is classified until further notice!"

* * *

Several hours later found Asuka's Unit Two suspended above the top of Mount Asuma by the rigging that the researchers there had constructed for lowering their probes into the lava. The Second Child herself was wearing the heat-resistant plug suit, which was blown up like a balloon.

Asuka was not pleased about having to wear the stupid thing, not least of all because she was pretty sure it wasn't actually necessary for her. She hadn't gone out and tested the extent of her durability, but she had recently realized that she couldn't remember exactly the last time she'd felt even the slightest twinge of pain.

And of course Kaji, who was developing the infuriating habit of disappearing when it came time to celebrate victories over the Angels (Misato had already informed her that he wouldn't be around after this battle either), had magically materialized to see her in the stupid inflated plug suit.

Oh, and her Unit Two had been crammed into the absurd looking D-type equipment. And the air force was going to drop nukes into the volcano if things went south.

_Really wish they'd told me about all of this before I volunteered for this mission,_ Asuka thought sourly.

All in all, the Second Child was not in the best of moods.

Still, it was a chance to earn a solo victory, something she wanted even more after the way the fight against the Seventh Angel had turned out.

"Are you ready, Asuka?" Misato asked her.

She nodded. "Ready when you are."

"Begin lowering Unit Two," the Ops Director ordered.

The thick cables that held the red Evangelion to the rigging began to unwind, and the production model started to descend into the lava. Asuka looked down, a small part of her unable to believe what she was about to do.

"Hey, Shinji!" she cried out, deciding that if she was going to do this, she might as well have some fun with it. "Look! Giant stroke entry!"

Over the radio, she could faintly hear the sigh of the Third Child, who was stationed at the lip of the volcano in his Unit One.

Unit Two hit the lava, creating a small splash as it did. A few moments later, the Evangelion was completely submerged, and the heat within the entry plug suddenly became stifling. Not only that, but her view screen was soon dominated by nothing but dark red light, creating a rather claustrophobic effect.

Asuka felt her heartbeat begin to accelerate as she started to sweat from the heat, the feeling that this whole operation had been a bad idea starting to wash over her.

_Pull it together, girl,_ she told herself, taking a deep breath. She instantly regretted this course of action, because the LCL had become unpleasantly warm.

"Status report?" Misato asked.

Asuka replied without really even thinking about it, her years' worth of training kicking in automatically. "Pressure and temperature are within tolerable levels," she said. "Visibility is zero. Switching to infrared scan."

She did so, and the picture on her view screen improved. Not by a great deal, but there wasn't very much out there to see anyway.

A few painfully long few minutes passed by in nearly complete silence, until she heard Maya announce, "The EVA has reached the estimated target depth."

"I'm not detecting any sign of the Angel," Asuka said.

"We're already at the maximum safe depth for the D-type equipment," Makoto warned.

"Recalculate," Misato ordered. "Find the Angel now. And continue the descent."

Asuka nodded in silent agreement with Misato's decision as the EVA began to move again, deeper into the lava. Seconds later, however, there was a snapping sound as the external holster that NERV had made to allow her to hold her progressive knife outside the D-type equipment broke and went falling into the lava, obviously gone forever.

"I've lost the prog knife," Asuka reported.

"Continue descent," was the only reply Misato made.

_Good thing I have to capture this Angel instead of kill it,_ Asuka thought, peering downwards as she kept trying to spot the embryonic Angel.

Just as she completed this thought, there was a loud _crack!_ and she suddenly heard Makoto exclaim, "Ma'am, a crack has formed in the outer layer of the armor!"

"Continue descent," Misato said again.

"Ma'am!" Makoto spoke up, sounding horrified. "Have you forgotten that there's a human being down there!?"

"That's enough, Lieutenant," Misato snapped. "The success of this mission is vital to NERV."

"I agree with Misato!" Asuka said. "I can keep going."

_Nobody_ was ever going to call Asuka Langley Soryu a coward, not while she had something to say about it. She'd rather risk death.

A few moments passed as Unit Two continued to descend, and Asuka's heart began to jackhammer in her chest despite her best efforts to keep herself cool and calm under pressure. She hoped that nobody was observing her vital signs too closely.

"How are you doing. Asuka?" Misato spoke into the tense silence.

"Fine, if you don't count that I'm covered in sweat," she grumbled. "I just want to get this over with and take a shower."

"There are hot springs in this area," Misato said. "We'll visit them after the operation's complete."

"Sounds good," Asuka replied gamely.

"EVA is now at 1780, the new estimated target depth," Maya reported.

Asuka squinted as she gazed into the murk her view screen was displaying, then her eyes widened as she finally spotted a dark shape that vaguely resembled a huge embryo. "I see it!"

"Be careful," Akagi warned, "because of the currents of the magma, you'll only get one shot at this."

"Understood," Asuka said, moving the cage into position.

_Don't screw this up. _Don't_ screw this up,_ she ordered herself harshly.

The wire frame of the high tech cage was finally in the right place, and Asuka activated it. There was a buzzing sound as it came to life.

"Electromagnetic cage has been activated," she reported, a smile of triumph spreading over her face. "The target has been captured. No problems detected. I'm beginning my ascent."

"Great job, Asuka!" Misato cheered.

The Second Child smirked and leaned back in her command chair. The whole experience had been scary as hell, but it had certainly been worth it.

"Well, did you expect anything less?" she asked smugly, feeling that she'd earned a few bragging rights.

"Asuka, are you all right?" Shinji asked softly.

"Of course," Asuka replied, still riding the emotional high of success. "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. This was easy!"

Suddenly, as if the Angel itself had decided that she simply was not allowed such an easy and simple win, the thing began to grow at an impossible rate. Its form shifted and changed as it expanded with an absurd speed, its increasing bulk soon pushing up against the "walls" of the cage as it writhed, clearly seeking freedom.

Dimly, a small part of her mind wondered if the Angel was actually absorbing the surrounding lava to fuel its ridiculous growth, or if it was just another case of the Angels contemptuously stomping on the laws of physics.

"It's going crazy!" she exclaimed.

"No!" she heard Akagi exclaim. "The Angel's begun to hatch! This is much sooner than we'd expected!"

_And you figured that out all by yourself? No wonder you're NERV's head scientist!_ Asuka thought.

"Asuka! Jettison the cage!" Misato ordered. "Forget catching it alive! The objective of this mission has changed from capture to termination!"

"You got it!" the Second Child said, releasing her hold on the cage and the Angel contained within.

They began to sink, but Asuka had no doubt that the Angel would break out and come roaring upwards at any minute. In preparation for this, she reached for her weapon with the D-type armor's clumsy, claw-like hands…only to make a rather unpleasant discovery.

"I forgot I dropped the prog knife!" she exclaimed.

Even she could hear the fear that had crept into her voice, but for once she didn't bother to scold herself for it. She was too concerned with the very untenable position she had suddenly found herself in.

"Shinji! Prepare to send down yours!" Misato barked.

"Roger!" he replied.

The Second Child abruptly caught sight of the Angel as it came roaring toward her. The thing was vaguely fish-like in appearance, but she couldn't discern much more of its features; her visibility was still terrible.

What she _could _see, however, was that it was coming right for her.

"Jettisoning holster!" she announced, slamming down on the button to remove the ballast she'd brought with her.

A small charge fired, and the belt of heavy weights around Unit Two broke and went plunging down into the magma, becoming one more item lost to the volcano. The production model Evangelion surged upwards, just dodging the Angel's first pass.

"It's fast!" she said. "Hurry up with that prog knife!"

"Shinji! Do it!" Misato barked.

"Right!" he replied. "It's on its way!"

Unfortunately, it looked like the weapon might arrive too late. The Angel was already surging forward on another attack run, and this time, Asuka had nothing to drop to increase her speed of ascent.

She found herself reduced to yelling at it, which she probably would have found humiliating if she wasn't so terrified. "No! Get away from me!"

If the Angel heard her pitiful plea, it ignored it, clamping its horrible mouth firmly onto the helmet of her D-type equipment's helmet. Its other appendages raked over her EVA's armored form, and one of them somehow found purchase, tearing one of the legs off the D-type armor.

Asuka grit her teeth as her own leg suddenly felt as though it was literally on fire, the EVA sharing its agony with its pilot through the A-10 clips.

_Well, now I know when the last time I felt pain was,_ part of her mind thought sardonically. _Right now!_

Shinji's progressive knife finally entered her field of vision, and she grabbed at it desperately. For one terrifying moment, she fumbled with it, thanks to the clumsiness of the D-type equipment's claws, but then she got a firm grip on it.

"Take _this!_" she roared, frantically stabbing at the Angel's core.

However, the blade failed to penetrate the sphere, or even crack it. Bizarrely, Asuka found herself thinking back to that NERV physician's inability to draw blood from her.

"The prog knife's not working!" she shouted.

"Oh no! The extreme heat has altered the Angel's molecular structure! The progressive knife won't work on it!" Akagi exclaimed, abruptly realizing just how dire the situation was.

"Asuka!" Shinji abruptly shouted. "Think physics!"

Her eyes widened. "Thermal expansion!" she exclaimed, getting the idea immediately.

She reached up and cut her coolant lines, grabbing one of the hoses and pressing the severed end to the Angel's core. "Transfer all coolant pressure to cable number three! Do it now!"

Makoto leapt to the task at once, and soon coolant was gushing out onto the Angel's core.

"Of course, the coolant will cause the core to contract and make it vulnerable to attack!" Ritsuko said, figuring out what Asuka was up to…and wondering why she herself hadn't thought of it first.

With a savage scream, Asuka brought the progressive knife down on the Angel's core, this time managing to pierce it. The beast writhed for several seconds before finally releasing its hold on Asuka, falling down into the lava.

_And that's what you get for resisting when Asuka Langley Soryu comes to capture you,_ she thought with weary satisfaction.

A sudden jolt abruptly ended her feeling of triumph, however. Asuka looked up and realized that the last cable connecting her to the crane up above was rapidly shredding under the weight of her EVA.

"I've done it," she said softly, "but that's it. I'm done for."

Asuka had always known that death in battle was a possibility. The various instructors she'd had at the NERV base in Germany had never sugar-coated that grim fact, but not until now had she really _believed _it.

Even now, she found herself grasping frantically at the possibility that she would survive this somehow.

_Maybe…maybe I can actually live through being exposed to the lava,_ she thought desperately, only to reject the notion as preposterous a moment later. She might be a lot tougher than the average human, but the idea that she could survive a magma bath was absurd.

The last cable went, and Unit Two began to fall deeper into the lava. Asuka didn't scream as the exosuit began to implode around her EVA, determined to die with dignity, rather than to deteriorate into a pitiful, frightened little child in her final moments. She looked down and closed her eyes, wondering if she would see Mama again…

The entry plug suddenly shook around her and she looked up, shocked to see Unit One holding onto the cables connected to her EVA with one hand and the ones still connected to the crane with the other.

"Shinji!" Asuka said, shocked. Then she grinned despite herself. "Idiot. You're such a show off."

* * *

A few hours later, the Operations Director and her two charges had gone to an onsen for the promised trip to a hot spring. Asuka had to admit that the hot water did feel very nice, though she could have gone without the smell of sulfur, which was _not_ something most people mentioned when discussing the wonders of natural hot springs.

Still, with the reek of sulfur or not, it was a nice place to visit, and it had been fun when she and Misato had wound up Shinji with their request for the body soap.

_Shinji…_

Asuka couldn't get over how he'd leapt into a volcano to save her, even though his EVA was still in the standard B-type equipment. She couldn't help but be touched by how he'd taken such a huge risk for her, even though she had been far from sweet to him in the time she'd known him.

She also couldn't help but find what he'd done to be…jarring. She had had Shinji figured for a total wimp, a pitiful sap who'd been dragged into something that was much, much bigger than he was, but leaping into boiling hot magma to save her life had not been the actions of coward.

_Who the hell are you, Third Child? _She wondered._ Why is it that you can risk your life to save me, but you automatically start sniveling out apologies whenever I snap at you?_

She shook her head. No matter how she looked at the puzzle he'd presented her with, Asuka just couldn't figure out how someone could be so timid one moment and so brave the next.

_I owe him now,_ she mused,not liking the idea of being in her "rival's" debt._ I have to repay him somehow._

Unbidden, the image of her planting a big, wet kiss on the Third Child suddenly came to mind. Asuka immediately banished the picture from her head, scowling and blushing at once.

_I meant in combat!_ She thought.

_"_Enjoying yourself, Asuka?" Misato asked, jolting the Second Child from her thoughts.

"Yeah," she replied, trying not to look at her guardian.

Asuka had utterly no desire to gaze at Misato's enviable bust; when the woman was clothed, the Second Child could soothe her jealousy by telling herself that the things would likely sag to the ground if unsupported. However, that obviously didn't work when she was staring at proof that this wasn't at all the case.

That…and she also didn't want to stare at the large scar that ran across Misato's torso, even as she tried to figure out how to ask about it delicately.

She must have failed to avert her eyes from the evidence of the long ago wound, however, because Misato turned to look at Asuka and offered a small, rather brittle looking smile.

"It's a souvenir from Second Impact," Misato said.

Asuka nodded, instantly understanding that it was better not to press. Misato wasn't the only one carrying scars from her past, after all; the only real difference was that the purple haired woman actually had a visible one.

"You've read my file," Asuka said. "You know about…me."

Misato nodded. "Yes," she said. "We should really let these things go. They're not worth carrying around."

Asuka didn't reply.

_Let it go, _she thought dourly._ Sounds about as easy to do as not having nightmares about that day anymore._

* * *

Asuka was in a much better mood the next day as she headed to school, and why not? She had a story to tell to Hikari and all her admirers. It wasn't exactly the story she would have liked to return to school with, but it was still pretty good.

However, when she arrived at the school, she found that the student body was already buzzing with conversation about…something.

_Could they have heard about the battle somehow?_ Asuka wondered as she approached a tightly packed group of students.

Seeing her coming, a few of them moved aside deferentially, much to her satisfaction. She moved forward, soon getting a look at what everyone was clustered around.

Her face immediately fell as she saw it. Laying on one of the desks was a tabloid that was published in Tokyo-3, and on the cover was a picture of a certain young super heroine in a red, white, and blue costume that looked like a fancy leotard. On her head was a gold tiara with a red star on it, and she wore large silver bracelets on her arms.

The headline "WONDER GIRL FOILS ARMED ROBBERY" was written across the top of the image in bold yellow letters.

It was roughly at this point that Asuka started to become aware of scattered comments being made by her fellow students.

"Wonder Girl is _so_ cool."

"Man, she's _hot!_ Would you check out those…"

"I wish I had powers like her. I'd show a few people a thing or two!"

Gritting her teeth, Asuka extracted herself from the cluster of students. She'd just come back from risking her damn life to save the entire world, and everyone at school was buzzing with talk of one of the city's resident superwomen.

_Typical,_ she thought disgustedly.

Honestly, Tokyo-3's superwomen received an inordinate amount of attention and praise from the people of the city. Though the more respected newspapers seemed almost embarrassed to cover them, the TV news programs had no such problems, and the tabloids were filled with little else these days.

It sometimes seemed to Asuka like it was impossible for someone to get any appreciation from the people of Tokyo-3 unless she threw on a costume, ventured out into the city, and saved the…

_Oh, duh! Why didn't I think of this before?_ Asuka thought, a grin starting to spread across her face.

* * *

Author's Notes: Regardless of your opinion on Asuka, one thing that I think really cannot be debated is that she's, well, an attention whore. And quite frankly, I can't see any other reason why she'd throw on a cape and start doing random heroic acts as this point. Especially considering that she feels, not without justification, that she's already busting her ass to save the world.

Moving along, it bugged me to include the whole volcano diving scene in here, since it didn't stray from canon, but I felt that I couldn't skip it. It's too important. By the way, did I ever mention that one of the things I really liked about writing "Spirit" was the freedom I was allowed by the fact that Hikari was "off camera" far more often than not? Clearly, doing the SOE2 series will present a whole new set of challenges. Not that I didn't know that already, but still…

Anyway, I know that a number of you, dear reviewers, have been expecting Asuka to brag about her super powers to people. While I certainly wouldn't expect her to be _modest_ about them, she's not going to go blabbing about them and blatantly showing them off to everyone. She knows there's a good chance it could get her out of EVA (really, if you were in charge of NERV, would you trust something like an Evangelion to someone who's going through bizarre physiological changes, especially if she might be more effective out of EVA than in it?), and so far as Asuka's concerned, piloting EVA is the only thing that makes her worth a damn in the end. Having super powers wouldn't change that about her.

I realize that I'm diverging from canon pretty slowly here. It was unavoidable, but things should start speeding up next chapter.

Orion, Booster Gold?! Good grief, I have _no_ idea how I would do the whole "I'm from the future" shtick he's got going on without basically _shattering_ Asuka's canon back story.

Quathis, I sort of envisioned Asuka's powers as going in and out and being present in varying degrees as they stabilized last chapter.

Scicio-Jin, in some continuities, Superman himself didn't develop his superpowers until he was in his late teens, presumably since it took him that long to absorb enough yellow sunlight to do so. However, when other Kryptonians or Daxamites (like Zod or Sodam Yat) are exposed to yellow sunlight, they develop powers almost immediately for some reason. As for why it took so long for Asuka, er, let's say that her human DNA caused a delayed reaction.

NefCanuck, the thing is, the Rejected Heroes omakes show power sets I did genuinely consider giving Asuka. I never thought about making her Zatanna, and I don't want to start throwing in other stuff because I think it's funny (though I still might later if I get desperate for omake material).

XRaiderV1, the way Asuka tossed Shinji out of his room was, of course, a just plain bitchy thing to do. Asuka, like pretty every character in NGE, has serious issues, and she's going to have to deal with them in this story.

Anyway, enough of my crazed ramblings. As always, thanks to my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta reader. Now, for a little fun.

* * *

Rejected Heroes (part three)

"Hello, dear readers, and welcome to the final installment of our three part omake series," Mike313 greeted cheerfully.

"Thank Gott it's almost over," Asuka scowled.

"Anyway, the last idea I briefly toyed with was making Asuka a Red Lantern," the author said.

A red power ring suddenly flew out of nowhere and onto Asuka's finger. The Second Child's school uniform was abruptly replaced with the red and black uniform befitting a member of the Red Lantern Corps. The symbol on her chest was a simple one that consisted of a circle and two crooked lines on its right and left sides.

It kind of looked like someone with devil horns. Maybe. A little. If you squinted.

"With blood and rage of crimson red, ripped from a corpse so freshly dead, together with our hellish hate, we'll burn you all! That is your fate!" Asuka screamed the oath of the Red Lanterns aloud.

Mike cleared his throat. "Ahem, yes. Anyway, for those of you who don't know, the Red Lanterns tap into the power of rage, much like the Green Lanterns use willpower. This particular idea only came about because my poorness keeps me from staying as current as I'd like with the Green Lantern books. I could see a red ring choosing Asuka, and for a while I thought it might be a way of making her an evil-ish super heroine. An anti-hero, basically. Then I learned a bit more about the Red Lanterns, and realized they're pretty much just plain evil. Little more than rabid dogs with a lot of power, really. Plus…"

Asuka suddenly fired a blast of liquid rage from her mouth, destroying a nearby piece of furniture.

"They basically fight people by vomiting blood at them, which is just nasty," the author grimaced. "Then there's the fact that people who wear the red rings become consumed by rage, and let's face it: the last thing Asuka needs is to become even angrier. _And_ there's the fact that the red rings actually take over for the wearer's heart, meaning they'll probably die upon removing the ring. A poor choice all around."

"I think it's a great choice!" Asuka roared. "It'll finally let me get back at you for this whole ordeal! I am sick of being a damn dress up doll for the amusement of your readers!"

The author sighed and opened his desk draw, removing a blue power ring. The Blue Lantern Corps, which utilized the power of hope, was arguably the strongest of the Corps. Their rings were able to soothe the rage from which the Red Lanterns derived their power.

Unfortunately, the blue rings had one glaring weakness.

"Idiot!" the Red Lantern roared. "The Blue Lanterns have almost no powers except when they're in the presence of a Green Lantern!"

_Oh crap, I forgot about that,_ Mike thought.

"Well, that's it for the 'Rejected Heroes' omake series," the author said very quickly. "I hope you enjoyed it. Now, if you'll excuse me…"

He then proceeded to beat a hasty retreat, just hoping he could get back across the fourth wall or find Green Lantern Misato in time.

"Come back here, baka!" Asuka roared as she flew off in pursuit.


	4. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC Comics or anything associated with it, and I am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Three: **Sight and Sound

It was morning in Tokyo-3. The sun had risen above the horizon not long ago, shining down golden rays of light from the clear blue sky. A few of these sunbeams happened to make their way into the bedroom of one Asuka Langley Soryu, where they illuminated the peaceful scene of the redheaded girl sleeping.

Not too after the sun began to peak through her window, Asuka stirred and slowly began to rise, yawning and stretching languidly as she sat up in bed. She opened her eyes… and found herself gazing at Shinji Ikari, who was nude save for a pair of boxer shorts.

"Ack!" she yelped in surprise as she recoiled. The German inhaled deeply, preparing to start screaming at him for coming into her room in such a state of undress while she was asleep.

Then, a most curious thing happened. She went from looking at a nearly naked Third Child to looking at the far wall of her bedroom. The latter had just appeared as if a shutter had abruptly snapped shut.

For a long moment, Asuka just sat there in bed, still reeling from the rather rude jolt into full wakefulness she'd received.

_Was I dreaming, or did I just… look through a _wall_?_ She wondered.

She realized that if what she'd seen had been the last vestiges of a dream, that meant that she'd been dreaming about Shinji in only his underwear. Since there was no way she'd ever have such dreams about _him_, it unquestionably meant that she'd developed a new power.

The logic was flawless. Really. In fact, she was going to prove it right that very moment.

Asuka concentrated, focusing on the wall with all her might and forcing herself not to cross her eyes in the process. Almost instantly, the wall became transparent again… along with the wall beyond it, the one that separated Shinji's room and the hallway. The Third Child was no more clothed than he had been a second ago.

The German quickly squeezed her eyes shut, unable to believe she hadn't had the foresight to point her gaze in a different direction. However, the damage had already been done. Not entirely shocked by what she was seeing this time, Asuka had managed to actually _see_ Shinji.

"The baka's not getting any results from our trips to the gym," she muttered to herself, even as she blushed all the way to the roots of her hair.

_Focus, Second Child, focus,_ she told herself. _You have things to do today._

That was true. NERV had been putting her and her Unit Two through a slew tests in the wake of her battle inside of Mount Asuma, leaving her without more than a moment a time to herself for days. They were finally letting up that day, which happened to be a Sunday, and that meant she now had time for her new… 'personal project'.

_Okay, get ready and get out there and get to work,_ she commanded herself.

Nodding once, Asuka got up, deciding she'd start with a shower. For some strange reason, she was in the mood for a cold one.

* * *

Asuka Langley Soryu was determined to join the ranks of the city's super heroines, and when Asuka Langley Soryu was determined to do something, she _did_ it, damn it.

However, once she'd actually gone over the "logistics" of it in her head, it quickly became apparent that it wasn't quite as simple as throwing on a cape and going out to right wrongdoings. There were problems she'd have to overcome first.

The biggest one of which was that she still didn't know the limits of her powers. It hadn't really been important when all she'd wanted to do was hide them, but now that she intended to use them, she needed to figure it out.

That was why she'd donned her stupid Phys-Ed uniform, ditched her Section Two detail (not a difficult task even before she'd developed super speed and the ability to fly), and went to a dump outside the city.

"Guess I might as well start," she said, rubbing her hands together as she surveyed the great piles of junk and rubbish that sat before her.

Fortunately, the vast bulk of the garbage present wasn't decaying food or anything disgusting like that, and the place barely smelled. Totaled cars and other such mechanical refuse made up the majority of refuse present.

Asuka walked slowly around the great mountains of broken things, not quite sure where to start. Finally, she decided that, even though she had come to this place in order to test her strength, she wanted to test how well her new X-ray vision worked first.

Walking up to a random car's remains, Asuka focused, and the thing's outer shell immediately became transparent to her eyes, allowing her to view the engine and all the other assorted innards of the automobile. Focusing on the engine, she looked harder, and found that the exterior of _that_ peeled away before her gaze as well, allowing her to see the components within.

However, she soon realized that she wasn't able to see through everything in the busted vehicle. Parts of the battery remained stubbornly opaque no matter how hard she focused on them.

Curious, Asuka relaxed her eyes, no longer using her X-ray vision, and then walked over to the car and popped the hood. The battery that lay within was a perfectly normal one, and she had no idea why it would thwart her eyes in the manner that it had.

_Think, Second Child,_ she commanded herself. _What does a car battery have that the rest of the car doesn't?_

Well, there was acid, but she didn't see why that should block her, and she didn't believe it had. The non-see through parts of the battery certainly hadn't appeared liquid.

_Geeze, did you graduate college or didn't you? What _else_ does a battery have that the rest of the car doesn't?_ She thought, having no more patience with herself than she did with anyone else.

All of a sudden, it hit her, and she wondered why it had taken her so long to figure it out.

Lead. Car batteries had lead inside of them, and it made a lot more sense for a heavy metal like lead to block her X-ray vision than something like acid.

"Dummkoff," she berated herself, smacking her forehead with her palm.

She spent a few more minutes toying with her new ability, looking through various wrecks, and found that whatever lead parts they possessed did indeed block her, but nothing else seemed to.

"Okay, that was interesting," Asuka said, once she was finally satisfied she'd tested her eyes as much as she could in this place, "now for the main event."

She had been going to the gym regularly for days, always making a point of dragging Shinji along, and she had yet to come close to exerting herself there, even as she steadily increased the weight she lifted to stay just ahead of him. It had been getting her more and more curious about how strong she really was, and now that she had her questions about her X-ray vision mostly answered, Asuka found herself itching to test her strength.

Looking around, she quickly spotted an old engine block lying upon the dusty ground. Deciding that this was as good a place to start as any, she kneeled down, got a solid grip on the thing, and lifted.

"Wow," she said as she held it above her head, then switched to holding it with one hand.

Much like the barbells at the NERV gym, the thing's weight put absolutely no strain on her muscles. She felt like she could have held it up all day without breaking a sweat.

For a long moment, Asuka just held it up and stared at it, expecting it to feel like it had gained a few hundred kilos of weight at any second. She even looked inside of the thing, just to make sure that it wasn't hollow or something.

"Wow," she said again, gently setting the engine block down.

Asuka wasn't surprised that she'd been able to pick the thing up, but she hadn't expected it to be so easy. Clearly, she'd need something heavier to figure out where she'd top out.

She moved over to a car next and placed her hands just beneath it. Grimacing slightly at the slick feel of engine grease, she pushed upwards, and the car rose smoothly into the air until it was over her head.

"Too easy," she whispered, her tone more shocked than arrogant.

It was a small car, one of the fuel-efficient little things that the Japanese were so adept at manufacturing. However, it was still a whole car, and she, a fourteen-year-old girl, was lifting it over her head like it was made of tin foil.

She set it down, and then went to another automobile. This one wasn't a Japanese-made compact car, though. It was a big, armored gas guzzler that had been used by the military until it had become too old and run down to further serve. The thing could probably endure a blast from a landmine without being blown to bits.

Asuka grabbed it and lifted it into the air without so much of a grunt of effort.

"Mein Gott," she muttered as she allowed the armored vehicle to fall back to the ground with a loud crash, the thunderous sound belying the thing's great weight in a way the ease with which she'd lifted it certainly had not.

She had come to this dump to discover the limit of her super strength. She had never expected that she might not be able to find it here, either.

"Okay, there has to be something here bigger than that thing," she said to herself, walking around the great piles of refuse in search of a heavier weight.

All of a sudden, she found it just behind one of the huge junk heaps. Sitting all by its lonesome was a very huge, very broken piece of military hardware.

_Looks like a mortar,_ she thought to herself as she walked up to the thing. _Or the remains of one, anyway._

The Second Child recalled hearing that a type-12 self-propelled mortar had been deployed against the Fifth Angel, to see how the thing would respond to being shot at with a really large weapon. Unsurprisingly, the Angel had responded by destroying the thing with its own energy attack.

"This could definitely be it," Asuka mused aloud as she examined the thoroughly destroyed weapon.

About half the thing had been melted and was unrecognizable, and the same intense heat appeared to have permanently welded the weapon to the train car it had once been merely bolted to. The more Asuka examined it, the more certain she became that it was the very same one Misato had used to test the Fifth Angel.

For a moment, she felt a strange sense of pity for the weapon. Created for the sole purpose of combat, deployed against an Angel, and then destroyed and discarded without even having drawn blood from the enemy. Something within her found that both incredibly sad and rather chilling at once.

Then she remembered that it was an inanimate object she was looking at and quickly dismissed these feelings.

"Well, this is certainly heavier than any of the cars here," she muttered to herself as she walked around the thing in a slow circle.

The problem was that it was _much_ heavier than anything she'd lifted so far. The mortar and train car must have easily outweighed the armored vehicle by several tons. It would be no big deal if she couldn't lift it at all, but what if she was able to partly pick it up, only to have her superhuman strength fail her? The thing could crush her beneath its enormous weight.

Most people would have shied away from the risk, but most people weren't Asuka Langley Soryu. Throwing caution to the wind, the redhead grabbed the edge of the train car in a firm grip, and then threw every ounce of strength she had to the task of lifting it.

Unfortunately, all her strength proved to be far too much for the task at hand. The wreck of the weapon and the train car barely felt heavier to her than the armored vehicle had been, which was to say, it was not heavy at all. Overbalanced, Asuka went staggering backwards a few steps as she struggled not to lose control of the light (to her) but large and very awkward load she carried. It was alarmingly difficult.

Finally, to avoid letting the thing fall on top of her, Asuka was forced to throw it over her head, sending it sailing behind her.

The huge hunk of what was now little more than scrap metal impacted the bottom of a tall stack of junked cars, which began to wobble dangerously. Recovering her balance, Asuka turned around… just in time to see an avalanche of metal and glass come falling down upon her.

The cascade of ruined cars soundly buried the Second Child, but the onslaught wasn't quite done yet. The gas tank of every old vehicle that was sent to the dump was _supposed_ to be drained before it was consigned to a place where it could be left to rust until it was sold for scrap or parts. However, the dump happened to employ a few rather lazy individuals who didn't care if gasoline leaked out of corroded tanks and contaminated the land, and who didn't believe anything would _ever_ set off the combustible liquid.

A tiny spark from all metal scraping against metal formed and, by sheer misfortune, happened to drift into an open gas tank. An orange fireball leapt up with a great _woomph!_ sound, billowing inky black smoke into the air, and several similar blasts followed, in a cascade effect as explosion begat explosion. In seconds, the fallen stack of cars was a great pile of twisted, burning metal.

For several seconds, said pile lay there, smoldering undisturbed and looking about as serene as such a thing could possibly look.

Then a car was thrown into the sky as Asuka burst out of the great mess, flying into the air to hover a few feet about the pile of burning cars.

"Holy…" she breathed as she looked at the devastation she had emerged from, then looked down at her hands.

Despite the amount of punishment her too successful attempt at lifting the heaviest thing in the dump had put her through, there wasn't a scratch or a burn anywhere on her. She'd known she was tougher than normal humans—crashing through a building and not receiving the slightest injury had been enough to prove _that_ to her—but this was beyond the pale. Having a pile of cars fall on top of her and then _burst into flame_ hadn't even _hurt_ in the slightest!

Hovering there, Asuka silently began to wonder if perhaps she _could_ have survived if Shinji had never sent Unit One plunging into the molten lava of Mount Asuma.

This thought, coupled with the realization that she _still_ didn't know just how strong she was, created a tiny spark of fear within her, though Asuka would have never admitted it, even to herself. All she allowed herself to acknowledge was the rather heady feeling that had swept over her.

Then she looked at herself again, noticing something she had managed to miss in her shock, and all thoughts of her powers immediately left her mind.

Her clothes were utterly ruined, all but the damnable gym "shorts" having been reduced to filthy rags that barely managed to hang onto her frame and concealed absolutely nothing.

"Damn it!" she cursed.

Clearly, the other preparations she'd meant to make for her debut onto the superwomen scene would have to be put off for a little while. She needed a shower, and a change of clothes.

_Thank Gott for my speed, or else there would be no way to keep everyone from seeing me like this,_ Asuka thought.

And with that, the girl vanished into a blur of motion.

* * *

One of the exceedingly few things that Asuka Langley Soryu and Toji Suzuhara ever would have been able to agree upon, had they ever stopped fighting long enough to have a civilized conversation, was that Shinji Ikari could be something of a fuddy-duddy at times. Where most teenagers craved excitement and adventure, the Third Child of NERV felt like he would probably go nuts if he wasn't able to spend a quiet hour or two with a hot cup of tea every now and then.

That morning had shown itself to be a prime opportunity to indulge himself in such a manner. There was no school, Misato had had to go into NERV, and Asuka had gone out to someplace or another, leaving him alone in the apartment. So Shinji sat at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper and sipping at a now nearly empty mug of tea, actually able to feel himself unwind, and becoming, if not strictly happier, then calmer as the minutes ticked lazily by.

Suddenly, the rare moment of tranquility was rudely interrupted by an impossible burst of wind that tore through the kitchen, causing the pages of his newspaper to go flapping wildly.

"What in the world?!" Shinji wondered aloud as he smoothed out the crinkled pages.

He got up and headed toward the door, where the bizarre gust of wind seemed to have come from, but there was no sign of anything out of the ordinary there.

Shinji only grew more confused when he heard the sound of the shower running. Pen-Pen was too short to reach any of the facets in there, but Shinji himself was the only human in the apartment, wasn't he?

His mind suddenly conjured up the idea of a dangerous thief who liked to shower in the homes he burgled, and for a moment, the Third Child felt afraid. Then he dismissed this idea as absurd and went up to the door of the shower and tapped on the door.

"What?!" he heard someone bark from inside.

The Third Child frowned, mystified. "Asuka? Is that you?" he asked, even though he'd recognized the German girl's voice just fine.

"Who _else_ would it be, baka?" she demanded.

"Uh, no one, I guess," he said lamely. "Sorry."

_I was _positive_ that she'd gone out,_ he thought as he returned to the kitchen.

He might not have actually seen the German girl leave that morning, but the apartment had been so quiet that he'd just assumed she'd left. After all, while Asuka wasn't the type who woke with the dawn, she didn't tend to sleep in until noon, either. And unlike him, she usually didn't hole herself up in her room without making a peep for hours on end.

And what had that wind been?

"I'm losing it or something," Shinji groaned, running a hand through his hair. "The stress is getting to me. That's the only logical explanation."

Well, either that, or Asuka was behaving just a little strangely that day, and he had ascribed too much importance to a breeze that had blown in from the windows, not the hallway. Yes, he decided, that had to be it. Really, the wind had only ruffled the pages of the newspaper a bit, not threatened to rip them out of his hand.

It was much more pleasant to believe than the idea that he was finally starting to crack beneath all the stress.

Deciding not to think about the issue any longer, Shinji went to the task of washing his now empty teacup, then returned to reading the paper.

Several minutes later, the Second Child emerged in the kitchen, dressed casually in shorts and a halter top.

"Morning, Shinji," she said as she opened the fridge and pulled out a can of juice.

His gaze flicked over to the clock. "Afternoon, Asuka."

The redhead "hmphed" and started drinking her juice. A rather awkward silence followed.

"Well," Asuka said, tossing the now empty can in the trash, "I'm going to the Geofront, in case anyone asks. I think I accidentally put something I need into storage with the rest of my stuff."

"What about the gym?" Shinji asked.

Asuka's eyes narrowed. "What about it?" she asked.

The Third Child swallowed, suddenly wondering if he'd accidentally stepped on a figurative landmine without even realizing it. "Well," he said, "it's just that we haven't gotten to go for the last few days, and I thought that since we finally had a day off, you would, well… want to go." He finished lamely.

Asuka blinked in surprise. Since the first time she'd dragged him with her to the NERV recreation center's weight room, she'd been making a point of lifting more weight than him at every exercise by just a few pounds and then subtly mocking the boy for his inability to out lift a girl. And Shinji was reminding her that they hadn't gone in a while? Why?

_Can't be the fantastic results he's getting,_ she thought, remembering that morning and sternly commanding herself not to blush.

So, again, why had he spoken up? Was it possible that he actually enjoyed their trips to the gym together, despite the way she used them as an opportunity to extract "payback" for his infuriating talent at piloting EVA? The idea made her feel incredulous, somewhat uneasy for some reason, and… something else she couldn't quite identify, something not altogether unpleasant.

"Asuka?" Shinji spoke up as the silence stretched on.

"You want to go, Shinji? Sure, let's go," Asuka said. "Just let me grab some of my gym clothes."

She disappeared into her room and returned a few minutes later with a gym bag, and the two of them left the apartment and hopped a train for the Geofront. As they were riding in, Shinji happened to look out the window and spotted something odd.

"Hey, what do you suppose that's coming from?" he asked Asuka, pointing out the window.

Asuka looked and cringed when she saw a great cloud of black smoke rising from the general direction the dump was in. "I don't know," she said. "It's probably no big deal."

"Looks like it's a really big fire to me," Shinji said.

"I'm sure it's no big deal," Asuka repeated, but her voice sounded weak even to her ears.

Shinji gave her a strange look, then shrugged and, to her relief, let it go.

* * *

Asuka was feeling generous toward Shinji for some reason, so she told herself as they were heading for the gym that she'd let him out lift her in a few exercises. She didn't when the time to do so actually came, but she did refrain from any of her barbs that were just subtle enough that he couldn't say anything in response.

Once the workout was over, Asuka headed for the locker room to shower and change back into her normal clothes. She bid good-bye to Shinji, and then while he headed back for the apartment, she made her way to the Geofront storage space.

Unsurprisingly, space wasn't exactly at a premium within the massive but mostly empty cavern that existed beneath the city of Tokyo-3, so the storage place had been more than capable of taking all the boxes Asuka didn't actually need. She made her way down to the warehouse where the things had been stored and used the key she'd been given to open her personal storage locker. Pushing the big door up, she entered the container and began to look around for a particular box.

"And they said I'd never use these things again," Asuka commented smugly to herself as she found a box labeled 'Costumes'.

Back at the Third Branch, a colonel of considerable importance had been fond of throwing costume parties (or 'masquerade balls', as the pompous officer liked to call them). Asuka had never been very fond of the man, but the Second Child wasn't one to ever miss an opportunity to see and be seen. As a result, she had quite a few costumes laying inside the box, most of which would still fit her just fine.

Of course, she couldn't just pick one and use that; someone would make the connection eventually. But if she mixed and matched bits of different costumes, she thought she would be all right.

Carefully going through the various articles of clothing, Asuka eventually selected a white leotard with a V-neck, red boots, a red cape, red gloves, a yellow belt, a red mask, and a blond wig.

The wig really should have been black, or at least brown, she mused. However, she didn't possess a dark colored wig, and Asuka suspected that people would realize she was a "gaijin" regardless of what color hair they believed her to have. In general, the Japanese were good at spotting foreigners, and Asuka was pretty sure she gave off the vibe of coming from the West pretty strongly. She just wasn't willing to be as quiet and demure as the Japanese felt girls should be.

She checked her watch then, discovering that the day was nearly gone. Her trip to the gym with Shinji had cost her the chance to make her debut that day.

No matter, she decided as she packed her costume up into a small box and left the container. Tomorrow was another day.

* * *

"Mysterious Fire at City Dump. No Injuries Reported."

This was the lead story of the Tokyo-3 Times the next morning, and Asuka didn't think she'd ever been so relieved at something she read in the newspaper. She hadn't expected that anybody would be hurt by the fire when she fled the dump the other day, but when she'd seen that great cloud of black smoke while on the train with Shinji, she'd definitely gotten nervous.

And that wasn't the only pleasant thing she'd discovered this morning. "That time of the month" was approaching, and normally, Asuka suffered from just about every symptom that a woman was capable of having during this period of time. That day, however, she felt perfectly fine.

The redhead decided that this was easily the best part of her mysterious new superpowers.

So, all in all, Asuka's day was looking pretty rosy.

"It wasn't as if the call was cut off," Shinji said as the EVA pilots walked toward NERV. "It was as if the line just… failed."

Well, except for the fact that Shinji was being _particularly_ wishy-washy for some reason.

Asuka rolled her eyes. The Third Child let every little thing in the world get to him. It was a wonder he ever had the time to do anything besides worry and fret, and no small surprise to her that he sat in his room for hours on end, doubtlessly doing just that.

"Geeze, Third Child, it's no big deal," Asuka snapped.

"Sorry," Shinji said at once.

Asuka rolled her eyes, wondering if he realized that always having an apology on the tip of his tongue was a sign of weakness and he just couldn't stop himself, or if he was entirely oblivious.

A few minutes later, the trio of pilots reached the Geofront access point they'd been headed for. Rei stepped forward and calmly ran her card through the reader, but the heavy doors before them failed to open up. The machine had neither accepted nor rejected Rei's card.

The Second Child quickly grew impatient. She'd dealt with plenty of such card readers, and she knew that when the cards got old, it often became necessary to swipe them through the reader much more violently than the First would ever do.

"One side, Ayanami," Asuka said with a smirk. "Let me show you how it's done."

The blue-haired girl obediently stepped away from the reader without a word, allowing Asuka access to it. The German ran her card through it far more quickly, sending it back and forth several times.

However, she got the same complete absence of a response. "Stupid thing must be broken!"

* * *

Misato was having a fairly average day at NERV. No Angels, lots of paperwork, and needing large amounts of the highly caffeinated glop that NERV distributed and had the gall to refer to as "coffee" in order to stay awake while doing it. Nothing could have been more ordinary.

She was returning from a brief trip to the accounting department (the cheap bums), and boarding one of the base's many elevators when it happened.

"Hey!" Kaji shouted, abruptly turning a corner and then sprinting toward Misato. "Hold the elevator!"

Keeping her expression completely neutral, Misato reached out and pressed the button to close the elevator doors. They began to do so, but at what seemed to her to be an agonizingly slow pace. However, it was a long hallway that Kaji had decided to sprint down, and for a moment she dared to hope that she'd escape him.

Then, at the very last moment, he managed to get his hand in between the doors, causing them to swing open again. Misato was forced to step aside and let him enter the car with her.

"Whew, I haven't run like that in a while," Kaji huffed. "So, why the long face, gorgeous?"

"I'm nauseous from having to see you," Misato grumbled.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the control room to one of the Evangelion test chambers, Ritsuko Akagi was not exactly having a good day. She had promised the Vice Commander that the experiments were conducting today would bear fruit, but—

"The EVA's nerve impulses are becoming erratic!" Maya suddenly reported, a detectable note of fear in her voice.

"Break the circuits," Ritsuko ordered. "Again."

One of her underlings quickly did as she commanded, and the control room was plunged into darkness. The giant form of Unit Zero that stood in the chamber beyond returned to its slumber.

A few moments later, the flow of electricity was restored, and the lights came back on.

Ritsuko sighed. "All right, let's try that again, but this time—"

She was cut off as the lights abruptly winked out once more, though this time she obviously hadn't told anyone to cut the power.

Ritsuko was standing at the front of the room, close to the large window that allowed one to view the huge room that Unit Zero currently occupied. She wasn't looking at the assembled group of technicians who were assisting, but she could feel their accusatory looks on her back.

"Hey… it's not my fault," she blurted out before she could stop herself.

* * *

The elevator Misato and Kaji were in suddenly jerked to a halt, causing both of them to momentarily lose their balance.

"What was that?" Kaji asked.

"I don't know, but I'm sure we'll be moving again soon," Misato said confidently, secretly trying to convince herself more than Kaji.

"What if something's wrong with the power?" Kaji asked.

"The base has two backup systems," Misato answered with a dismissive wave of her hand. "We should start moving again—"

The fluorescent lights above them abruptly went out, to be replaced by the harsh orange glare of the emergency lights.

"—any second now," Misato finished lamely.

* * *

Meanwhile, at the coast of Japan, the world's largest daddy-longlegs began to emerge from the depths of the Pacific Ocean.

* * *

Back on the street, Asuka had just proclaimed herself the leader of the small group of EVA pilots. It was a natural choice, she felt; neither Shinji nor Rei had the force of personality to lead a boy scout troop along a nature trail.

"Well, let's go!" Asuka said, turning on her heel.

"The Geofront is in the other direction," Rei spoke up.

The cheerful expression on the redhead's face suddenly turned very brittle, and despite the strange, blue haired girl's perfectly neutral tone, Asuka couldn't help but wonder if Rei was mocking her.

Ignoring this concern for the moment, the German did a quick, 180 degree turn and started to walk briskly in the proper direction, knowing there was nothing to do but put the embarrassing moment behind her as gracefully as possible.

It wasn't long before they reached a door that would lead them down into the access tunnels, from which they could reach the Geofront and then headquarters. However, like all the other doors in this over-engineered place (seriously, such an unnecessary overabundance of technology was not to be found in the _German_ base), it was electronically controlled. Which was rather problematic, seeing as how there was no electricity available.

"How are we going to get in there?" Shinji asked.

Asuka gestured at the large hand crack that was right next to the door.

"Oh, we can open them manually!" Shinji said as realization dawned.

The Second Child could have opened the door herself with ease, of course, but she wasn't quite sure she trusted herself to do so without breaking the thing, or without so much speed that it became obvious something was unusual about her.

Ever since her little excursion to the dump had shown her just how strong she was, Asuka felt a bit more nervous about hiding her powers.

"Well, Third Child, this is your department!" Asuka said. "So hop to it!"

Shinji briefly considered pointing out to Asuka that she was stronger than he was. Then he decided against it, grabbed the crank, and started to turn, using all his strength for the task. The door started to open very slowly.

_When's the last time they oiled this thing?_ Shinji wondered after he had been struggling through his task for little while.

Asuka Langley Soryu was a lot of things, but patient was not one of them. And even though she knew it would be prudent to leave the job to Shinji, as the seconds ticked by and the door opened by centimeters, her tolerance quickly expended itself.

"We're going to be here until Third Impact at this rate!" Asuka complained. "Here, baka, move over and let me help."

She moved next to the Third Child and placed her hands next to his own, and then she very carefully applied a tiny fraction of her own strength. The door began to open at a noticeably faster pace.

Shinji directed a thankful look at her. Asuka tried not to feel guilty when she saw it.

Finally, they were inside, and confronted with a long, dark corridor.

And Asuka found herself confronted with the fact that she wasn't the least bit familiar with the innards of the Geofront access tunnels, save for the main routes that were currently blocked to them.

Of course, Asuka was far too proud to admit she had no idea where she was going and hand over the job of navigation to Rei. A few days ago, she would have simply picked turns at random, confident in the knowledge that they'd have to reach their destination _eventually._

Fortunately, she no longer needed to do that, not with her nifty new X-ray vision. Smiling smugly, the Second Child focused, willing the walls of NERV to become transparent to her eyes.

They did, all of them, all at once, until Asuka abruptly found herself looking at almost _everything_ in the base at the same time.

The redhead staggered back a step, overwhelmed by the sudden rush of data that was coming at her. She was too shocked to simply "turn off" her X-ray vision, and for a brief, frightening moment it seemed as if the rush of data would overload her brain. Somehow she found the mental capacity to wonder what would happen to her if she succumbed to the relentless tide of information. Would she pass out or… would she be reduced to a state similar to the one Mama had been in at the end?

Just when it seemed as though the only question was whether the horror or the surge of data would knock her out first, Asuka suddenly felt herself begin to adapt to it all. It was a very strange sensation, and if forced to describe it, she could have only said that it felt as though a chamber within her mind rapidly began to expand, making it possible for her to focus on just about the entire Geofront at once without going insane as a result.

As her brain backed away from critical mass, she became aware of Shinji practically shouting her name, as well as his hands on her shoulders. She blinked and then pushed him away, telling herself that the place where he'd touched her didn't feel unusually warm.

"What are you doing?" she demanded.

"Are you all right?" Shinji asked instead of answering directly, and Asuka actually found herself grudgingly impressed with him for not immediately stammering out an apology. "You looked woozy, and I thought you were going to collapse for a second there."

"I'm fine," Asuka said. "It's probably just how hot and stuffy it is down here."

She knew that the excuse was a weak one as soon as it had left her lips. While it was rather uncomfortable down in the tunnels, Asuka wasn't so fragile that the temperature down there should be having such an adverse effect on her, and Shinji and Rei knew it. The Second Child had journeyed into a volcano to confront an Angel without suffering any ill effects from it, after all.

"Are you sure?" Shinji asked. "For a minute there—"

"Yes, I'm fine!" Asuka snapped. "Now do you want to get to headquarters or stand here worrying all day?"

"Sorry," Shinji said.

Asuka rolled her eyes, finding herself feeling strangely disappointed that he apparently wasn't developing a spine after all.

Putting this thought aside, she turned back to the tunnel and once more turned her X-ray vision on the Geofront and the access tunnels. It still seemed like a lot to take in all at once, but nowhere near as bad as it had been before.

However, she soon realized something that startled her. NERV had a strangely large amount of lead or some other substance that could block her X-ray vision in it, so much so that she wondered if working there might be hazardous to one's health.

_What the hell is with all of it?_ Asuka wondered.

She doubted that it was the result of the people who built the place illegally cutting corners left and right. She couldn't imagine that using the lead in the construction would have been cheaper than pouring concrete, and even if it had, the cost of building the base and the Geofront roof must have been a drop in the bucket next to the cost of excavating the Geofront in the first place.

Then she abruptly realized that while some the lead was placed in haphazard fashion, most it wasn't. She couldn't see into the Commander's office, large sections of the Pribnow Box were hidden from her, Terminal Dogma was shielded entirely, and a few other areas were likewise concealed.

_Did they actually put lead shielding into the walls of the base to prevent spies from using X-ray scanners or something to gather information?_ Asuka wondered, her mind boggling at the prospect.

Even by NERV's standards, that was _paranoid_.

"Pilot Soryu," Rei spoke up, jolting Asuka out of her reverie.

"What is it, Ayanami?" Asuka asked.

"You were the one saying we should be going a moment ago, but you have just been standing there," the blue haired girl pointed out.

Asuka colored slightly despite herself, embarrassed and annoyed at once. "Just getting my bearings," she said. "Come on."

* * *

Meanwhile, in Tokyo-2, a group of JSDF officers sat in their command center and watched as an enormous contact on their radar screen moved slowly but steadily toward Tokyo-3.

"Any response from NERV?" one of the generals present asked.

"No, we can't raise them or even the civilian government of Tokyo-3," another officer replied.

"That thing's not exactly hard to spot, and it's obviously an Angel! What the hell are those NERV bastards doing? the general wondered aloud in exasperation.

"Unknown, but satellite imagery shows that the city hasn't been evacuated. It looks like NERV might be asleep at the switch for some reason."

"Wonderful," the general grumbled, then crossed his arms, leaned back in his chair, and thought.

Under a different set of circumstances, namely one in which conventional military forces could destroy an Angel, he would have been only too glad to see NERV asleep at the job. The collective pride of the Japanese military had taken a beating from the results of the First Battle of Tokyo-3, and that bastard Ikari had made very sure that no one was able to forget the impotence of conventional means of fighting when the Angels were concerned. The general would have liked nothing more than to see NERV get humiliated in some manner.

However, if the price of wiping that small, smug smile off of Ikari's face was the destruction of the human species, well, that really wasn't worth it.

"Keep trying to get NERV on the line," he said, "and someone get me the airfield. If NERV won't tell the people that they have to evacuate, we will."

They couldn't slay the Angel, but that didn't mean they had to sit on their hands and languish in their uselessness, either.

* * *

Not much later, the airspace of Tokyo-3 was invaded by a small fleet of low-flying propeller planes, all of which were equipped with a set of enormous speakers.

"ATTENTION!" blared from the planes. "AN ANGEL HAS BEEN SIGHTED AND IS APPROACHING TOKYO-3! ALL CIVILIANS ARE HEREBY ORDERED TO EVACUATE TO THE DESIGNATED SHELTERS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE!"

The people of Tokyo-3 heard, and they obeyed. Hunkering down in the underground bunkers every now and then had simply become a part of life in their city, and they responded with little panic. Though a few stragglers who either didn't hear the warning somehow or who opted to ignore it, the city still became virtually deserted in very short order.

* * *

"Do you hear something?" Asuka asked.

Shinji frowned. The trio of EVA pilots was already a significant distance below the ground, and with all the machinery in the city silent, there wasn't anything _to_ hear. The access tunnels were tomb-like in their silence.

"No," he replied.

"You sure?" Asuka said, frowning as she looked about, obviously searching for the source of the sound she'd heard.

"Uh, yeah, pretty much," Shinji said.

Feeling certain that she'd heard _something_, Asuka cupped a hand by her ear and strained to catch whatever it was.

And, quite unexpectedly, she found herself hearing _everything._

"—what's up with the power? Is it—?"

"—thought this city was supposed—"

"—this could be bad, if an Angel—"

"—who do you think is—?"

"—I didn't realize, but—"

"—man, I'm hungry—"

"—or I'll—"

"—what—"

The thousands upon thousands of sounds flooding her mind were both worse and not as bad as the overwhelming surge of visual stimuli she'd suffered earlier. Not as bad because she knew she'd adapt and so it didn't invoke the same spike of panic. Worse, because it had come completely by surprise this time.

The great tide of sound made her feel woozy and sick, but she did her best not to show it. With a supreme force of effort, Asuka managed to more or less preserve her composure this time, or at least, she didn't cause Shinji to rush over to her in case she collapsed.

Finally, her mind began to adjust to all of it, just like when she'd used her X-ray vision to reveal all of headquarters and the Geofront to her. The sounds gradually became more of a dull buzzing noise in the background, and she realized that she could sort of filter through them, ignoring the most of them while giving her attention to only one or two she selected from the "ether."

And the first one she picked out was the announcement being made by the JSDF planes flying above the city. An Angel was coming.

For a split second, she contemplated losing Shinji and Rei in the dark tunnels and going off to confront the thing with her bare hands. Getting the Evangelions to the battlefield without power would be quite the task, to put it mildly, and so far as she could figure, an Angel was perhaps the only thing against which she could truly put her developing powers to the test.

However, she dismissed this idea almost immediately. She might have been born to be a superwoman, but she was _made_ to be an EVA pilot; she considered herself to be the Second Child more than she was anything else, more than she was _Asuka_. She wasn't about to throw away the chance to do the thing she'd spent her whole life preparing to do.

"Asuka, are you all right?" Shinji asked. "You've been kind of zoning out…"

"I'm fine," she said. "Come on, let's go. I want to be at headquarters as soon as possible."

* * *

Meanwhile, outside, Makoto was walking to NERV, thanks to the failure of all the city's mag-lev trains.

Well, that and the errand his boss had sent him on. Honestly, he knew Misato was his commanding officer, but it seemed a little much for her to order him to do some of her chores. However, when she'd smiled at him and told him to do it, the idea of objecting simply hadn't ever occurred to him.

"And I thought it couldn't get any worse than having to pick up Misato's dry cleaning for her," he grumbled. "Honestly, could this day possibly get any worse?"

"ATTENTION! AN ANGEL HAS BEEN SIGHTED AND IS APPROACHING TOKYO-3! ALL CIVILIANS ARE HEREBY ORDERED TO EVACUATE TO THE DESIGNATED SHELTERS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE!"

"I had to ask," he groaned as he looked up at plane overhead. "Geeze, I'd better get to headquarters and warn them!"

* * *

To Shinji's considerable surprise, Asuka had been doing a fairly good job of leading them through the access tunnels. She didn't exactly seem to know the place like she'd grown up in it; there had been a few wrong turns and they'd had to back track a couple of times, but even so, they were doing pretty well.

He didn't know how she was doing it; nobody's sense of direction was that good, and he was fairly certain Asuka had become mildly turned around a few times during her first couple of days at their school. However, he had decided it would be wiser not to ask. It was enough for him that they were making good time.

Or at least, they had been making good time, until they'd found themselves confronted with a collapsed section of tunnel.

"There's no way I can clear this with my hands," Shinji said.

Asuka didn't reply, giving the pile of rubble that blocked their path a chagrined look. She supposed it was understandable that she'd missed noticing this obstacle until it was too late to detour around it; she had been using her X-ray vision to try and view all of the tunnels at once. Still, it was clear that she'd need practice. Perfection had always been expected of her when it came to EVA piloting, until she herself was the one who demanded it from her harder than any other. She would tolerate no less from herself when it came to anything else, either, including the use of her powers.

Now, however, was not the time to dwell on it.

She looked around, gazing through the walls as she tried to find an alternate route to their destination, but her apparent hesitation drew on too long for the First Child. Rei kneeled down by the wall and pulled the grate off of an air vent.

"We can get to the Geofront by going through here," Rei stated.

"You're not serious," Asuka said.

"I am," Rei replied simply.

_I am _not_ going in there,_ Asuka thought, quickly forming a plan.

"Okay, okay, fine," she grumbled. "Shinji, you go first. Rei, you next. I'll bring up the rear."

Shinji and Rei exchanged a very brief glance, surprised their mostly self-proclaimed leader wasn't claiming the spot at the front for herself. However, both quickly decided not to question, and Shinji got down on his hands and knees and climbed inside the vent. Rei followed soon after.

Rather than get into the vent herself after the blue haired girl, Asuka stood before the pile of rubble and cracked her knuckles. The Third Child might not be able to clear it all away with his hands, but she could.

She pulled her fist back, and, suppressing the loud roar that seemed like it should accompany such an action, fired a punch that could shatter boulders.

A thunderous crash echoed through the tunnel as the junk that had blocked their path was utterly blown away by the force of the redhead girl's blow, clearing out the hallway.

Unsurprisingly, Shinji and Rei quickly emerged from the ventilation shaft to see what had generated the nearly deafening burst of sound.

"Asuka! What happened? Are you all right?" Shinji asked in a great rush as he leapt back to his feet.

"I just… touched it, and it all collapsed," Asuka said, gesturing at the now unblocked hall and acting far more shaken than she actually was.

"This is fortunate," Rei said. "We will get to headquarters more quickly this way."

"Well, let's go, then," Shinji said with a shrug.

* * *

Hyuga had believed that it would take him forever to reach headquarters on foot. He'd been right about that, but as it had turned out, he hadn't had to traverse the distance by walking. A van being used as an advertisement on wheels for a politician had decided _not_ to heed the evacuation orders for some reason, and Hyuga had manage to commandeer it.

"Hey, the barrier's still up!" the driver said as they approached the entrance to NERV.

"Just plow right through it!" Hyuga snapped. "This is an emergency!"

"Sweet," the driver said, and increased the pressure on the accelerator.

The woman who'd been using a megaphone to shout out the virtues of a politician named Takahashi screamed as their speed increased, but she needn't have worried. The barrier was just a thin piece of wood that had been painted red and white, and there were no stop spikes in place. The van easily crashed inside the base.

Only minutes later, the bespectacled technician had recruited a number of low level NERV personnel to help him with the task of prying open the stubbornly shut doors and make his way to the command center.

"An Angel is approaching the city!" he shouted without preamble as he finally reached his destination.

If the Commander was fazed by Makoto's abrupt appearance and the implications of his announcement, he didn't show it.

"Then we must prepare the EVA Units for manual launch," Gendo said simply as he got up from his chair.

"Manual launch?" Fuyutski echoed. "Is that possible?"

"I thought you would have learned by now, Sensei," Gendo said. "_Anything_ is possible, given the right tools and enough determination."

Fuyutski could only sigh. Gendo was correct.

_Unfortunately,_ the old man thought, recalling the various feats had pulled off over the years, their momentousness rivaled only by their monstrosity.

* * *

"Are we nearly there?" Shinji asked.

"Yes, already, we're almost there," Asuka snapped. "Honestly, you're like a kid on a car trip, Third."

"Sorry, but it just seems like we've been walking for a long time now," Shinji said.

"Well, I can't disagree with you there, Shinji, but…" Asuka trailed off, waiting until they'd turned a corner. "We're here."

She swept her arm out in a grand gesture, indicating a metal door that was clearly labeled "Central Dogma Level 3-A."

Asuka walked up to the door, finding that this one didn't have an electronic lock like all the others they'd encountered thus far. Instead, a wheel sat in the middle of the door. She grabbed hold of it and carefully gave it a spin.

"I told you I'd get us here, didn't I?" Asuka asked smugly as they walked inside.

"Yes, Asuka, you did," Shinji admitted. "But we still have to get to EVA cages."

"I don't think that will be a problem," Asuka said.

"Uh, why not?" Shinji asked, confused. "I mean, aren't all the doors in here going to be stuck closed until the power comes back on like the others?"

"Oh, sure, but that's no big deal," Asuka said.

Before Shinji could ask why not, the redhead put two fingers in her mouth and whistled sharply. This sounded as loud as a cannon shot to her new super-hearing, but Asuka was learning to deal with this new power and didn't recoiled as she might have done earlier.

Moments later, a pair of NERV security personnel arrived to investigate the sound.

"We need to get to the EVA cages as soon as possible, and you two are going to escort us there," Asuka told the two men in her most authoritative voice, making it clear that very unpleasant things would await them if they dared to object.

"Uh, yes, Pilot Soryu," one of the men said. "This way, please."

* * *

The task of preparing the Evangelions for manual launch had been labor intensive to say the least. The entry plugs had had to be moved into position with ropes and pulleys, they'd had to cut hoses to release the hydraulic pressure that held some of the restraints in place, and they'd fired up a diesel engine nobody had ever thought would see use to remove the remaining restraints.

"Well," Ritsuko said at last, "we're ready. Now all we need is the—"  
One of the doors to the cages opened then, the pair of security guards who'd pried it open stumbling inside. And behind the two men were the EVA pilots.

"Perfect timing, you three!" Ritsuko said. "We need you to get changed into your plug suits right away! There's an Angel approaching the city!"

Asuka did her best to look surprised by this information, but no one was paying particularly close attention to her, so it turned out not to matter.

"The EVA's?" Shinji asked Akagi.

"Ready to launch," the blond scientist confirmed.

"But how?" Shinji asked in confusion. "There's no power."

"Look," Ritsuko said, gesturing to where a group of men, including Gendo Ikari, were using pulleys and ropes to get one of the entry plugs into position. "Your father believed in you, so he had the EVA prepared manually."

"My father," Shinji said softly, looking shocked.

Personally, Asuka didn't see what was so surprising about it. The fact of the matter was that the Commander had _no choice_ but to believe in the EVA pilots, so that he had gone to so much trouble to ready the Evangelions for their use really didn't impress her.

However, she saw no need to burst Shinji's bubble, and in any event, she had far more important things to do anyway.

"Well, come on, let's go get into our plug-suits," Asuka said, already able to taste glorious victory.

_This is going to be so good,_ she thought.

* * *

"Oh, we must look so stupid," Asuka whined as the three Evangelions, each equipped with F-type battery packs, crawled through a very large shaft on their way to the surface of the city.

"So?" Shinji replied. "It's not like there's anyone around to see us."

Asuka reluctantly admitted that the Third Child had a point there and turned her full attention to the task at hand. Perhaps, she thought, she could repay her debt to the pilot of Unit One that day and would no longer have to dwell on the knowledge that she owed him. Part of her mind seemed to enjoy whispering that fact to her at the moments she least expected it, and she was sick and tired of it. It was time to pay her dues and move on.

They arrived at a large metal plate, and Asuka wasted no time to knocking it out of the way with her Unit Two's fists. It occurred to her then that she probably could have done that just as easily without her EVA. It was heady thought, but one Asuka put aside for the moment.

The barrier she'd just knocked away led to another shaft, this one vertical. The Second Child leaned her EVA out and looked up; she was able to see daylight streaming down from above.

"Okay, let's move," Asuka said, sending her Unit Two leaping out into the vertical shaft.

Shinji and Rei followed, and soon the three Evangelions began to climb upwards, their hands and feet braced against the walls of the shaft. It was a tough climb, and the Children were all able to feel the fatigue of their machines' muscles through the A-10 connector clips. Asuka couldn't help but think that it would be a hell of a lot easier to just fly up to the surface of the city.

She frowned slightly at this. She was thinking of Unit Two almost as if it was a burden, but that wasn't true, couldn't be true.

"Almost there," she grunted, more for the sake of taking her mind off her current thoughts than anything else.

Unit Two reached the lip of the hole at the surface of the city and hefted itself up onto the street, then the red EVA turned and helped the other two up.

"Where's the Angel?" Shinji asked, looking around.

_That's a good question,_ Asuka thought. _Where _is _the Angel?_

"It might somehow be aware of our inability to keep the EVA's running indefinitely at this time, or it may be attempting to overcome the numeric disadvantage we have it at by using ambush tactics," Rei cautioned. "We must keep alert."

One wouldn't think that something the size of an Angel would be able to hide itself anywhere, but Tokyo-3 had a lot of very tall buildings that formed great walls of metal and glass, which even an Angel could conceal its bulk behind.

Asuka briefly considered using her X-ray vision again but quickly dismissed the idea. If she did that, she'd find herself gazing inside of every building in Tokyo-3, in addition to all the information she was receiving from her EVA via the A-10 clips. That just seemed like asking to be overwhelmed again to her.

Instead, the Second Child closed her eyes, once more focusing on the sounds that had been a constant background buzz ever since she'd discovered her super hearing. An endless number of sounds suddenly came to her attention: the beat of her heart, the sound of her blood rushing through her veins, the various mechanical noises made by her EVA, the conversations of hundreds of people…

But no sign of the Angel.

_Come on,_ Asuka thought. _Where the hell are you? I know you're out there somewhere._

Suddenly, Asuka heard the sound of something very large touching the pavement with surprising softness, not making a sound that a normal human ear would have been able to detect from as far away as the Evangelions were.

"Ayanami! Down!" Asuka barked.

The warning actually turned out to be belated one. To Asuka's surprise, the First Child had thrown Unit Zero into motion just a half an instant before she'd called out to her. The blue Evangelion leapt aside, just as the Angel, a huge, horribly spidery looking thing broke cover, becoming visible between two towering skyscrapers.

The Angel's central body was entirely covered by great yellow and blue eyes, and from one of these, a jet of brown liquid surged forward. However, Rei had been too fast for it, and the stuff came to land on the street. Large clouds of thick white smoke burst up as the acid began to rapidly eat through the asphalt.

The enormous arachnid attempted to hide again, but its retreat, like its attack, was simply a moment too late. The Second Child raised her pallet rifle and fired, sending shells that were normally fired by tanks flying through the air toward the gap between the two skyscrapers.

The huge rounds easily punctured the central body of the spidery Angel, pumping it full of holes. The thing wavered on its multiple legs for a second before it crashed to the street, quite dead.

"Well," Asuka said, once she was sure it was dead, "_that_ was fantastically lame."

"I think I like them that way," Shinji commented.

Asuka rolled her eyes, but smirked despite herself.

* * *

The next day, the Second Child sat in her room, the parts of costume she'd picked out for herself laying next to her on her bed. For once, she wasn't spending the day after an Angel battle trapped inside headquarters; thanks to the blackout, NERV was more concerned about making sure they once again had everything up and running properly than doing the regular post-battle checks on the Evangelions and the pilots. It left Asuka with time to start her career as a super-heroine.

Yet now that she had her window of opportunity and everything she needed to use it, she found herself feeling an uncharacteristic spike of doubt.

The idea of throwing on a cape and a mask, flying around and randomly doing good deeds so she could get a little recognition seemed, well, silly now that she thought about it.

Did she really need praise so much that she'd do something like this, just because she hadn't been able to prove herself the best EVA pilot yet?

The idea made her feel needy, something Asuka detested. The redhead had always done everything in her power to be as self-sufficient as possible.

She almost put the costume away and forgot the whole idea. Almost.

Then she remembered what everyone had been fixated upon when she'd returned from Mount Asuma. The Wonder Girl. Asuka had risked her life, and damn near lost it (maybe), only to have everyone unable to shut up about one of the city's superwomen.

Didn't _she_ deserve a little appreciation for her efforts? A little recognition?

The Second Child refused to so openly admit it to herself, but her pride, the very foundation of her soul, had been taking blows since the battle against the Sixth Angel, and she wanted—_needed_—something to bulwark it.

Asuka quickly stripped off her clothes, then donned her new costume in its place, being extra careful to make sure that the mask and wig were both securely in their places. The mask felt… wrong for some reason, but Asuka quickly dispelled any temptation to take it off. Flying around with her face uncovered would be like just telling NERV who the new superwoman really was.

Ready to go out and begin, Asuka opened her window and then flew out through it, quickly soaring high above Tokyo-3. Then she came to a stop, closed her eyes, and listened for a situation where someone like her was needed. It had to be something pretty spectacular; Asuka wasn't about to make her debut by foiling a purse snatching or something.

So for several minutes she hovered with her eyes closed, just listening to the thousands upon thousands of sounds coming from far below her. Then her eyes popped open and she took off like a shot back toward the Earth. It was time for the world to see a new aspect of Asuka Langley Soryu.

* * *

Hiro Sagara smiled out at the crowd of faces arrayed before him, most of which belonged to powerful government officials or high ranking military officers. Thanks to the Angels, the government had been utterly pouring cash into the defense industry, and it time to grab an even larger share of it for his company.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Sagara said, "the VTOL Heavy Attack Aircraft gave birth to a new generation of combat fighter-bombers. Today, we expand upon that, with a fighter that makes the original look like a toy. Honored guests, I give you, the VTOL Mark-II!"

Right on cue, a pair of men pulled a huge sheet off of the new plane, revealing it to the crowd. The members of the press that were present dutifully snapped several photographs of the plane, even though the visible difference between the Mark-II and its elder brother were minimal. The assembled VIPs were less than blown away.

Sagara had expected this, and quickly moved on with his speech. "Looks pretty similar, doesn't it?" he asked. "Well, that just goes to show you that looks can be deceiving, because under the hood, the Mark-II is a whole different animal."

For the next few minutes, Sagara rattled off facts and figures about the new plane, lovingly describing its increased maneuverability, greater speed, and expanded weapons capabilities. He could feel the members of his previously less than overwhelmed crowd gradually regaining their enthusiasm, and he could already smell a very lucrative sale coming.

_Time to close the deal,_ he thought.

"But don't listen to me," Sagara said. "See for yourself."

He gestured, and with a wave of his hand, the pilot seated within the new aircraft started the engine. A great gust of wind from the thing's engines blew over the crowd, and Sagara smiled. Any VTOL-capable plane would have done the same, but it _felt_ impressive, and in the business of sales, perception was more important than reality.

Then the new VTOL took off from the airfield at the edge of Tokyo-3. The crowd watched in awe as it began to perform feats of aerial acrobatics that no prior man-made flying machine had ever been capable of before. Sagara wondered where he'd build his new vacation home.

Then the walkie-talkie he held crackled to life.

"Damn it, I'm having problems here, Sagara," came the voice of the pilot. "Oil's getting eaten up quick, and I think the last of my torque pins just failed. I thought this was sent to I-level repair!"

"It was," Sagara said.

"I need to bring it in," the pilot said.

"There's no external leakage," Sagara hissed back. "The investors are watching. That's fifteen billion yen and our last six years of development you have in the air. Keep it flying!"

"That isn't—damn it!" the pilot exclaimed.

Sagara didn't need to ask the man about what was going wrong now; he could see it easily enough for himself. Fire and smoke was streaming from the plane's engines, and it was losing altitude fast.

"Bail out, you idiot!" Sagara snapped. "Bail out!"

"Can't!" the pilot shouted. "I gotta make sure it doesn't hit the city!"

Sagara had no reply to that, and he could only look up and watch as the plane careened down toward the ground. He could see its course changing slightly as the pilot tried to steer it to an empty area, but the thing was almost completely out of control. As he stared at the unfolding disaster, he could only wonder at how everything could have gone so spectacularly wrong.

Then he spotted a tiny flicker of something red approaching the nose diving plane. Sagara thought he was just imagining it, or that it had been a trick of the light, until someone from the crowd spoke up.

"Look!" one of the spectators yelled, pointing. "Up in the sky!"

"What is it?" Sagara wondered aloud.

* * *

The wind roared in Asuka's ears as she flew through the air at high speed, heading for the disaster that she had discovered was beginning to unfold with her super hearing. Saving the crashing plane would be the _perfect_ way to make a huge splash with her debut, and an eager grin was spread over her face as she careened downwards, contrasting with the look of intense determination that burned in her blue eyes.

She soon came within sight of the plane, which was billowing flames and black smoke from the engines mounted on the sides. Asuka could also hear the pilot grunting with the effort of trying to redirect the doomed plane's course away from the city, but he was having little success, despite his heroic struggling.

_Good thing it's your lucky day, flyboy,_ she thought as she approached the falling aircraft.

Doing her best to avoid the smoke, Asuka flew in close to the plane, quickly reaching it. The pilot saw the flying girl as she zoomed through the air, and though Asuka didn't notice it, the man did a double take, so stunned that he momentarily forgot what he was doing.

Maneuvering herself behind the plane, Asuka flew over to the base of the aircraft's tail and, effortlessly keeping pace with the new VTOL's uncontrolled descent, wrapped her arms around it and began to pull.

Asuka's flying ability and strength went up against the weight of a multi-ton piece of military hardware, the force of gravity, and the huge amount of momentum the plane had managed to build up as it had fallen from the sky like a lead balloon. The rest was no contest.

The plane quickly slowed, then stopped. It and Asuka hovered in the air, and the redhead in the blond wig grinned widely, feeling drunk on success and her own power. It wasn't unlike what she'd felt after successfully capturing the Eighth Angel in the magnetic cage.

And, like the battle against the Eighth Angel, this wasn't going to be as simple as it seemed at first. An ominous creak of buckling metal reached Asuka's ears, and suddenly the tail of the plane snapped off, allowing the VTOL to continue its downward spiral.

"_Schisse!_" Asuka cursed, tossing the tail away toward the mountain range that ringed the city.

Extending her arms in front of her, Asuka took off flying again, once more in pursuit of the falling VTOL, part of her mind wondering what must be going through the _pilot's_ mind. The plane was coming dangerously close to the ground now. In a few seconds, it would impact the city and explode.

_No!_ Asuka thought, suddenly gripped by powerful rage borne of intense frustration. _I won't fail again! I won't!_

Putting on a great burst of speed, the masked girl caught up to the falling plane, this time flying just below the belly of the aircraft. She placed her hands on the VTOL's underside and pushed.

Slowly, the angle of the plane to the ground below began to decrease, and their rate of descent diminished as she gradually applied more and more strength to the task, careful not to overdo it and send it falling again; she didn't think she'd have the time to catch it again if she dropped it.

Finally, Asuka got the plane entirely right side up, and came to a stop. She had done it. She had saved the pilot and the city.

Then a powerful gust of wind blew by, upsetting the balance of the plane in her hands.

"Damn it!" Asuka shouted, juggling the plane desperately to keep it securely in her hands.

Deciding that the thing was obviously going to be scrapped anyway, she easily dug her fingers into the metal of the fuselage, allowing her a much stronger grip on the VTOL. She wondered why she hadn't tried that before.

Finally with a firm hold on the plane, Asuka ascended again, searching for and quickly finding the airfield where it had taken off from. She flew toward it as quickly as she dared, planning to land there. As she descended back toward the ground, she allowed herself the indulgence of using her super hearing to tune into what the people there was saying as she approached them.

"What in the world is going on?"

"It's one of the city's superwomen, it _has_ to be."

"Yeah! I can just see… there's definitely a girl carrying that plane!"

"Who is it? Is it the Wonder Girl?"

"No… I don't recognize her. Maybe she's a new one."

"Here she comes."

Asuka landed a decent ways away from the crowd, wanting them to be able to see her but not desiring to be mobbed. Flashes of lights from numerous cameras met her eyes, and she smiled brilliantly at the group of onlookers, soaking up all the attention like a sponge.

Then she carefully set the useless remains of the new VTOL down on the ground and flew up a few meters into the air, toward the canopy of the cockpit. She easily ripped off the glass windshield and then extracted the poor pilot, placing him gently on the ground.

"Are you okay?" she asked the man.

"My life's still flashing before my eyes," the pilot answered, sounding about as dazed as was to be expected, "but yeah, I'll be fine."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a pair of fire engines approaching, clearly coming to douse the flames that still licked at the ruined aircraft. Asuka knew that it wouldn't be wise to stick around for much longer.

But she couldn't bring herself to leave _quite_ yet, this endeavor having been the kind of roaring success she wished that her exploits in EVA would be. Instead, she turned back to the crowd and smiled again, drawing herself up to her full height and placing her fists on her hips. The series of camera flashes that followed should have been blinding, but they didn't impair Asuka's vision in the least.

Finally satisfied, Asuka threw a fist into the air and again soared into the clear blue sky.

It wasn't until she was nearly back at the apartment that she realized she hadn't given the people there a superhero name for herself (something she hadn't thought about until now), leaving the job of naming her alter ego up to the media.

"Nothing to do about it now, I guess," she said. "Just hope that they come up with a good one for me."

* * *

There were times when Shinji Ikari found Asuka Langley Soryu's behavior truly inscrutable. Those times were fairly frequent, but none of them had been quite like this one.

"Come on, Shinji, move it," Asuka ordered him as she walked down the street so quickly that he nearly had to jog to keep up.

"What's the big rush about, Asuka?" he asked, suppressing a yawn. "We'll get to school over a half an hour early at this rate."

Though he sometimes admired Asuka's eagerness to go out and confront whatever the day held in store for her, Shinji definitely thought she was taking it too far that morning. His redheaded flat-mate had woken him up early that morning, and then practically pushed him out the door once he'd dressed and finished with the various chores he performed at the start of each day.

"I want to get something before we go to school today," Asuka told him, and Shinji's sleepy mind finally registered that they had turned off from their regular route to Tokyo-3 Municipal Junior High School.

"What?" he asked.

Rather than answer him, Asuka walked up to a small newsstand. "I'd like a tabloid," she told the guy manning the little booth.

"Which one?" he asked.

"The Tokyo Tattler," Asuka replied at once.

Shinji frowned as the man produced the requested magazine and Asuka paid the guy for it. While he certainly didn't make a habit of reading rag magazines like that, he'd seen the Tokyo Tattler once or twice, usually in Kensuke's possession. The publication claimed it was, among other things, "The Best Source for Information About the Superwomen of Tokyo-3."

Tabloid in hand, Asuka began to walk off, and Shinji quickly fell in step next to her.

"Why did you buy that, Asuka?" he asked. "I thought that you hated the city's superwomen."

He had once endured listening to Asuka rant about them, and the Second Child had labeled them all a bunch of "glory hogs," which definitely ranked as one of the more unintentionally ironic statements he'd heard Asuka make.

"Some of them really rub me the wrong way," Asuka said, "but that's not the case with all of them. This one, for example, looks like a real winner."

She showed him the cover of the Tattler, which showed a striking picture of a very attractive young blonde holding a burning airplane above her head like it was toy. The headline "New Girl in Town!" was written in red block letters at the top of the page.

Shinji stared at the picture of the masked girl in the form fitting white leotard for a few seconds before he forced himself to snap out of it, lest Asuka notice and start shouting that he was a pervert.

He could see no reason why this new girl had gained Asuka's admiration while others, such as the Wonder Girl, garnered only scorn, but he decided it was probably safer not to ask about that and just accept that he would probably never quite understand the redhead.

"So, what's this new one called?" he asked instead.

"It looks like they're calling her Power Girl," Asuka replied, her nose buried in the tabloid. "Pretty simple name… but I guess it's not bad."

* * *

Author's Notes: For some reason, this chapter took me forever to crank out, and I'm still not a hundred percent satisfied with it. Ugh, well, you've probably heard me deliver this rant before, so let's just skip it and move on.

I imagine a number of you are wondering why the hell I decided to have Asuka take the name and costume of Power Girl. Well, it's pretty simple, really. Admittedly, part of the reason that it would be surprising, but that's really not why I did it. Quite simply, I didn't want Asuka wearing the famous S-shield at this point, while she's out superheroing for the wrong reasons. Not that I think that Asuka and Power Girl are particularly similar, but I sort of feel that it's almost impossible to disrespect Power Girl in fanfic, given all the crap that DC has done to her canon ("She kryptonian! No, she's Atlantean! No, wait, we had it right the first time. She's kryptonian." Never mind that bizarre story with the magical baby that she had, which the writers—probably wisely—have apparently made a collective agreement to never mention again.) if that makes any sense.

On the subject of her costume, the mask bugs me, because the Supers traditionally do not wear masks, but I really didn't see any way around it. I briefly toyed with the idea of having Asuka wear really thick glasses while being in the cape, but that just seemed a tad too silly. I also realize that it's a stretch that any wig would actually stay on her head while she flies around, but more improbable things happen in comics. Oh, and a few astute readers might have noticed that Asuka's costume lacks PG's infamous "boob window." This was done because, let's face it, Asuka can't pull that off. Hell, _Misato_ might have trouble pulling that off.

I realize that this chapter wasn't terrifically action packed, but it's really pretty hard to squeeze a lot of action out of an Angel that can actually be killed by the _pallet rifle_.

Anyway, thanks as always to my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta reader as well. Now for some fun.

* * *

The wonder of X-ray vision

"Bow chicka wow wow," Asuka sang very softly to herself as she sat on her futon, practically bouncing in place in her anticipation.

Anyone watching her would have thought that she'd gone insane. The redhead was in the middle of her room, and apparently just staring at the wall as though it was the most exciting thing she'd ever witnessed. Of course, no one watching her would have been able to realize that she possessed X-ray vision.

The girl had discovered this new power not long ago, and being the completely open and un-self-repressed teenage girl that she was (*cough*), the Second Child had quickly seized upon the opportunity it presented her. She was currently looking through walls and gazing into the room of Shinji Ikari, where he was changing clothes.

"Come on," she breathed softly, "take it off!"

The Third Child stripped off his shirt and pants fairly quickly, then he hesitated and looked around, as though he could somehow feel her gaze upon him.

"Stop teasing me!" she hissed.

Almost as though he'd heard her and had decided to obey her command, Shinji shrugged. Asuka watched raptly, practically drooling in anticipation as he grabbed hold of his boxers. He pulled them down, and—

"ARGH!! MY SPERM!" Shinji screamed in pain.

Shocked, Asuka turned off her X-ray vision without even thinking about it, then she cringed. _I didn't think I was sending out _actual_ X-rays from my eyes,_ she thought.

She sighed. "Well, guess I'll just have to go the same route mother did if I ever want kids," she said. "Hopefully they won't slip _me_ any weird DNA."

* * *

Serious Brainstorming Session

The staff room of the Tokyo Tattler was a busy place that night to be sure. The editor, who looked strangely like Perry White would have if he were Japanese, walked in and dropped a photograph on the table. Said photograph showed a girl in a white leotard and red cape holding a plane over her head as though it weighed nothing.

"Gather round people," Not Perry White ordered. "We've got a new superwoman in town. She can fly, she's cute, and she can juggle trucks. Great story! Now all we need is a name for her! I want options people!"

The group of writers and other editors hesitated for a moment, not exactly happy with so abruptly being put on the spot. However, Not Perry White swept the room with a glare, and people suddenly started throwing out suggestions.

"Maxima!"

"Lame!" Not Perry White said. "We want a name that says super powerful girl, not horny alien monarch!"

There was a pause as everyone wondered just how the hell their editor had gotten that from just the name "Maxima."

"Come on people! Names!" Not Perry White shouted.

"Miss Marvel!"

"Somehow I have a weird feeling that a super heroine with that name just doesn't quite belong in this universe," Not Perry said. "More!"

"Power Princess!"

"Are you kidding me?" Not Perry barked. "Does she _look_ like she's wearing pink to you?"

"Ultra Girl!"

"Bleh, sounds like some kind of crazy Japanese superhero," Not Perry said.

"Uh, Chief…"

"C'mon, people, it's not that hard! I want a name that says super powerful girl! That's it!"

"Oh! I know! I know!" one of the reporters said. "Miss Fantastic!"

"Hey, that's not bad," Not Perry said, "but I think it's taken. Come on, people, we need a name that shouts super powerful girl."

"I got it!" a copyeditor shouted. "Power Girl!"

Everyone turned to look at the guy, amazed that he'd even suggest something so stupidly simple.

Until Not Perry spoke up. "You've got a gift, my friend. Don't ever let it go to waste."


	5. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC comics or anything associated with it, and I am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

"_She's very big in Japan."_ –S.T.R.I.P.E. commenting on Supergirl in Justice League Unlimited "Chaos at the Earth's Core"

**Chapter Four:** The Calm Before the Storm

"Damn it!" Hiroyuki said as he clutched at the steering wheel of his car so hard his knuckles turned white.

Horns blared as he sped through a red light, causing two cars that had been going through the intersection to collide in their efforts to avoid a crash with him.

"Damn it," he hissed, eyes wide.

Tires screeched and the smell of burning rubber filled the air as Hiroyuki turned the steering wheel sharply, causing his car to perform an illegal turn that was heralded by yet more car horns.

"Damn it," he said again.

Anyone watching Hiroyuki at that moment might well have assumed that the man had a _serious_ case of road rage, considering the way he was cursing and how insane his driving was. However, while he was driving while feeling pretty enraged, this wouldn't have been a fair accusation to level at the man; he was far more angry at himself than anyone else.

_"Of course I know how to change brakes, Reiko-chan." God, I'm such a moron,_ Hiroyuki thought distantly as he began to swerve wildly through the busy midday traffic.

For a city with such a low population density, there were a lot of cars on the road in Tokyo-3. A lot of downhill roads, too.

"Damn it, damn it, _damn it!_" he screamed as his panic reached a crescendo.

He was approaching a bridge that crossed a river that went through part of Tokyo-3. Traffic was backed up on the bridge, _and there was no way for him to get off the road he was on without crashing into the side of a building._

"GOD DAMN IT!" Hiroyuki screamed as he diverted his car so he would drive into the river, closing his eyes and just hoping that he'd escape this ordeal with his life.

The car drove off the street and went sailing through the air. Hiroyuki nearly vomited as the feeling of the ground falling out from beneath his car assailed him.

_Oh god, I never told Reiko that I love her,_ surged through his head.

Then, a great jolt went through the whole car, and it felt as though the car had stopped plummeting toward the rushing water below. But surely that was impossible, he thought. It was a trick his terrified brain was playing on him in the brief, endless seconds before he hit the water.

Yet as the moment dragged out across several seconds, Hiroyuki began to hope that some miracle really had happened. At some point he realized that he had covered his eyes with his hands, and he slowly parted his fingers so he could see.

Looking through his windshield, he could see that the world wasn't blurring past him, which could only mean that he'd stopped. He'd stopped, and his car was apparently hovering in midair.

_B-But…how?_ He thought, barely able to think straight through the fog of adrenaline.

His car slowly began to move, slowly but smoothly through the air, heading back toward wonderfully solid ground. Purely out of habit, Hiroyuki grabbed hold of the wheel the moment his car started to make its path through the air.

Soon he and his car were hovering above a wonderfully _flat_ section of street. Hiroyuki noticed that several onlookers were taking pictures, most of them with cell phone cameras, and for a second, he genuinely wondered why anyone would feel compelled to snap a photo.

_Oh, right, flying car,_ he thought, then released a small, rather crazed sounding giggle.

His car was lowered to the ground, first the front wheels, then the rear ones, and Hiroyuki finally got the chance to see the reason _why_ his car had decided to make like a helicopter.

"Power Girl," he muttered as the blond heroine opened up the driver's door.

"You okay there, pal?" she asked.

"Huh?" Hiroyuki said distantly as his brain tried to process the girl's words. "Oh! Oh, yeah, I'm fine, thanks to you. Just shaken up."

_God, she's so young,_ he thought.

The masked girl was, at the absolute most, sixteen years old, but she was probably younger. It was difficult for him to tell exactly; she was fairly tall and well developed, but her face (or at least, the parts of it not covered by her mask) and voice said she was younger than her body did.

Somehow, he'd pictured the Girl of Steel as being older.

"Glad to hear it," Power Girl said cheerfully.

She briefly turned to the crowd and waved at them, getting several cheers in response.

"Well," she said, turning back to Hiroyuki, "I have to fly."

With that, she threw one fist up into the air and took off into the sky, her long red cape flapping wildly in the wind as she went, everyone with cameras frantically grabbing a few last shots before she was gone.

Hiroyuki just stood where he was for several seconds, looking up at the sky long after Power Girl had vanished from his view. He had often expressed skepticism when it came to the city's vaunted superwomen, both at their intentions and sometimes over their very existence.

Yet one of them had just saved his life, had just given him a second chance.

Finally taking his eyes off the heavens, Hiroyuki reached into his pocket and withdrew his cell phone. Hitting one of the speed dial buttons, he put the phone to his ear and waited as it rang.

"Hello?" a voice on the other end answered.

"Hello, Reiko-chan," Hiroyuki said. "Are you doing anything tonight? I'd like to take you out to dinner if you're free. There's something I've been putting off telling you for too long."

* * *

They were after him, he thought as he walked through the busy streets of Tokyo-3. Until recently, They'd thought he didn't know about them, but he'd known all right. He'd known all along. He was much too crafty for Them. While the rest of the world watched NERV deal with the big, obvious Angels, only he saw the far more insidious threat They posed. Only he was acting to stop Them.

The world would thank him for it.

Keeping that in mind, he reached into the trench coat he was wearing and removed the submachine gun he'd gotten at considerable expense and with great risk. Pointing it in the air, he fired a short burst of gunfire.

He'd never fired the weapon before, and he was surprised by the loudness of it. Surprised, but not distraught; the harsh, intense noise made him think of thunderbolts cast down by a righteous angel at the enemies of man.

Predictably, most of the people on the crowded sidewalk where he stood immediately either dove for cover or went down on their bellies at the sound of the noise. A few people screamed. Others turned and ran like hell.

Yet a few people took none of these actions, and instead just stood there.

This was how he knew they'd been possessed by Them.

In the horrified silence that followed the burst he'd fired into the air, he immediately located his targets. There were three people who'd failed to react to what he'd done: a middle-aged woman, a young man, and a little boy who couldn't have been older than nine.

Cursing Them for what They were forcing him to do for the good of humanity, he took aim at the child, deciding to get the worst part over with first. He squeezed the trigger, once again bringing the sound of thunder.

There was a blur of white, red, and yellow, and suddenly someone was standing between him and the child who wasn't really a child at all anymore: a certain blonde who was familiar to anyone in Tokyo-3 that hadn't been living under a rock.

There was a soft _tink! tink! tink!_ sound, and neither Power Girl nor the possessed child collapsed to the ground. For a second, he just blinked dumbly, having no clue where that sound was coming from or, indeed, what exactly had just happened.

Then his mind put it all together. The bullets he'd fired had _bounced off_ of Power Girl, and that sound had been the slugs falling to the sidewalk.

"Damn it! I thought you superwomen were different!" he shouted as he switched his firearm over to full automatic, a very illegal modification he'd had made. "But you're not! You're all with _Them!_"

He pulled the trigger again, this time sending a near solid stream of high velocity projectiles at his new, super powered foe. This seemed to work better than the short burst had, because Power Girl staggered backwards, releasing a grunt of pain.

"None of Them can stand against me, not even _you_, Power Girl," he said.

The masked girl glared angrily at him, but she collapsed to her hands and knees beneath the withering assault he was dishing out.

Eventually, his weapon clicked empty, but he wasn't concerned. Power Girl was still alive, but she was looking pathetic and defeated down on the sidewalk as she was.

"Not so invincible now, are you?" he taunted.

Power Girl looked up at him, wearing a smirk that froze his heart.

"Actually, yeah, I am," she said, standing up easily and suddenly seeming perfectly fine. "I just let you think you were doing something other than tickling me, so you'd waste all your ammunition on me."

His eyes widened and he immediately plunged a hand into his coat pocket in search of a fresh ammo clip, for whatever good it might do him. However, Power Girl surged forward with a burst of speed and actually snatched the extra bullets from his pockets before he could.

In desperation, he grabbed the gun he held with both hands and struck Power Girl in the head with it. There was a loud _thunk!_ as the weapon impacted with her skull, but she didn't even flinch. Instead, she gave him a look that was half amused and half incredulous, as though she was surprised he'd even tried that.

Then she snatched the weapon out of hand and easily bent it in half.

He turned to run, but Power Girl grabbed his collar, stopping him cold. "Yeah, you're not going anywhere," she told him matter-of-factly.

Easily restraining him with one hand, Power Girl dragged him a few meters over to a traffic sign that held up by a metal pole embedded in the sidewalk. Grabbing that metal pole with her free hand, she ripped it from the concrete, then she twisted it around him, pining his limbs and immobilizing him soundly.

"There, that ought to hold you until the police come, and probably for a while after that." Power Girl said, lightly clapping her hands together a few times as though to dust them off. "Well, see you."

With that, she flew off into the air, leaving him alone with the still stunned crowd.

"Damn, They're good," he muttered to himself miserably.

* * *

A few minutes later, Power Girl was approaching the apartment building she called home. Before she got too close to it however, she stopped, hovering in midair, and looked down. She concentrated, and soon, not only had layers of matter peeled away from her sight, but her eyes also "zoomed in" on the area around the building. This new ability, which she had dubbed "telescopic vision," had appeared as mysteriously as all her other powers a few days ago.

It made her wonder, not without a touch of apprehension, if other powers would be forthcoming.

"Hmm, where are the Section Two guys?" she muttered aloud. "Ah, there you are."

Two black suits were sitting in an equally black sedan with tinted windows that was parked outside the apartment building. One of them had his nose buried in a girly magazine, while the other had a pair of headphones on and was softly bobbing his head in time with the music he was listening to.

Power Girl smirked. _Your taxpayer dollars at work,_ she thought.

Having confirmed that slipping unnoticed past Section Two would be about as challenging as usual, she turned her attention to the building itself, examining the Katsuragi apartment.

_Hmm, Shinji's home,_ she observed, seeing him puttering about in the kitchen.

That meant she couldn't just fly in through her bedroom window. Shinji might have been willing to forget about that incident when she'd been forced to zip past him with her super speed, but if she made a habit of appearing inside the apartment without the use of the door when he knew she was out, he'd eventually put two and two together.

Fortunately, this was no problem for her.

Rather than heading for her window, Power Girl instead entered the building at ground level, using her superhuman senses and speed to make sure that no one spotted her doing so. Once inside, she headed for a small electric room. Her red duffle bag was waiting right there where she'd left it.

Quickly, Power Girl took off her costume and traded it for the shorts and top that she'd left in the bag, shedding her alter ego and becoming Asuka Langley Soryu again. Then she placed her costume inside the bag, which she took with her as she left the room (after a quick look with her X-ray vision to ensure no one was present to see her leaving, of course).

After that, it was just a quick elevator ride up to the place she currently called home.

"Hello, Asuka," Shinji greeted her as she strolled into the kitchen. "Did you enjoy yourself out in the city today?"

The redhead shrugged. "I had an okay time, I guess. There's really not that much to do out there," she lied, "but it's better than just staying cooped up in here all day."

Shinji, who often did just that, simply made a noncommittal noise in response. Asuka let this slide.

"So, what are you making?" the German asked, peering over his shoulder and into the frying pan he had on the stove.

"Oh, just stir-fry," Shinji said. "Nothing special."

"Well, whatever it is, it smells nice," Asuka replied. "When is it going to be done?"

Shinji blinked, more than a little surprised at having received so direct a compliment from Asuka. "Uh, about an hour or so," he stammered out.

"Gotcha," Asuka replied, then practically skipped off toward her room, leaving a rather perplexed Shinji behind her.

Once in her bedroom, Asuka hid her costume in the back of her closet, being careful not to wrinkle or crumple the garment as she did so. It wouldn't do for Power Girl to be seen in disheveled clothes, after all.

Since she had some time to kill, Asuka began to root around for the _other_ thing she kept hidden at the back of her closet: a stack of tabloids that was rapidly increasing in size. She'd been on the cover of the _Tokyo Tattler_ for the last three weeks, and she felt confident that this streak would only be continuing.

As she'd expected, the name "Power Girl" had stuck. A few other publications had tried to give her alter ego different names, the most notable of which was "the Girl of Steel." It was too long to become her official alias, but too cool to just go away, so it was becoming a nickname for the Power Girl persona. Asuka certainly had no complaints about it.

Even by her standards, it was just a touch egomaniacal for her to collect, read, and repeatedly reread practically every scrap that was printed about Power Girl. However, Asuka had difficulty caring very much about that as she flipped through the tabloids. Seeing the glowing praise, and knowing that she was repeatedly stealing the front cover away from the likes of Wonder Girl—knowing that she was the _best_ superwoman…it made her feel invincible, even more invincible than when some psycho or criminal realized that bullets just bounced off her (something she herself had accidentally discovered a while ago while interrupting a robbery). Indeed, all of it made her feel more than invincible; it made her feel like a goddess.

And Asuka liked feeling like a goddess.

* * *

Meanwhile, in a particularly well defended zone of cyberspace, twelve holographic monoliths came into existence with a soft whooshing sound. The SEELE council didn't meet very often, since _no_ electronic exchange could ever be completely secure, and when they did, it was more often than not for the purpose of berating Gendo Ikari.

However, the Commander of NERV was not present for this session. SEELE was gathering to discuss things which didn't directly involve him, for once.

"This meeting is officially called to order," SEELE-01 announced once all the monoliths were present. "The first item on the agenda…"

Most people wouldn't have guessed as much, but being a member of a shadowy cabal that manipulated the nations of the world like they were mere pieces on a giant chessboard definitely had its dull moments. There were a lot of boring tasks and minutia that had to be seen to in order to prevent their stranglehold on power from slacking. An election in South America needed to be rigged to keep a minion of SEELE in power, industrial sabotage needed to be performed in the Middle East to manipulate the price of oil, somebody needed to pull strings at the UN to get a peacekeeping force sent into Kaznia to put down the rebels there…the list was practically endless.

Every member of SEELE found this process very dull, but like it or not, they were forced to handle it. When one's activities are as abhorrent as those of SEELE, one has to maintain a very strict level of secrecy. And that meant they had to deal with a lot of the chores themselves rather than delegating them to peons.

So they went through all of it, item by item, for hours.

"And that concludes that," SEELE-01 said when these tasks were finally completed for another week.

Weary from boredom, the other eleven members eagerly waited for Keel to officially adjourn the meeting. However, they knew better than to ask him if they could go, or, even worse, log out of holographic chamber before he dismissed them.

"Before we leave," SEELE-01 said, forcing most of the others to restrain groans, "there is one more thing we need to discuss…"

An image appeared in the center of the ring of monoliths, one of a blond girl who was holding an armored car up in the air with one arm.

"I'm sure you've all heard of Power Girl, the latest of these 'superwomen' to appear in Tokyo-3," SEELE-01 said.

The other members of the council murmured in agreement. All of them kept close tabs on what happened in the fortress of mankind, the epicenter of all their schemes. Their plan left very little room for variances, which was why they had spent over a decade obsessively preparing for it, doing their very best to make sure events unfolded in _exactly_ the way they were supposed to, especially in Tokyo-3.

So, naturally, they were none too fond of the superwomen, each of whom represented an incredibly dangerous X-factor in their equation.

"Whoever she is, she has yet to show any predisposition to meddle in the war against the Angels, or the affairs of NERV in general," SEELE-09 said. "She seems content to simply fight crime and avert disasters in the city."

"Indeed," SEELE-04 agreed. "We should remain focused on finding countermeasures against the Wonder Girl."

"Because that's been going so well," SEELE-08 grumbled. "Despite our best efforts, we have yet to discover who Wonder Girl is, or to find any potential weaknesses."

"Well, she's not going to go away if we simply take our attention off of her," SEELE-12 spoke up irritably.

"Enough," SEELE-01 spoke up, instantly ending the argument. "Power Girl's apparent lack of interest in NERV affairs is indeed good reason to keep our primary focus on Wonder Girl. However, we cannot simply afford to ignore her and hope she never decides to prove a nuisance to us."

"With all due respect, do we really have much choice?" SEELE-06 spoke up. "Our resources are stretched thin at this critical time. To worry about problems which haven't materialized yet seems wasteful."

"In this case, I feel we must take precautionary measures," SEELE-01 said firmly. "Preliminary calculations suggest that Power Girl's abilities may rival and perhaps even exceed those of Wonder Girl. If she were to lash out against NERV for some reason, or worse, learn about us somehow, she could potentially reduce the scenario to ashes."

"So what do you propose we do?" SEELE-03 asked. "I trust you've already acquired as much knowledge on this girl as possible, and if you had developed a plan of action, you'd be telling us our parts in it."

"You are correct," SEELE-01 said. "I have been able to find precious little information on this new superwoman, aside from what is readily available to the general public. For now, we can merely watch her as best we can, watch and wait for an opportunity to present itself."

"We watch a thousand thousand things," SEELE-12 pointed out. "You hardly need to tell this council to keep an eye on Power Girl, or indeed, our permission to monitor her yourself. So why bring her up here?"

SEELE-01 was silent for a moment before her answered. "Because, I have feeling that this new one will be particularly troublesome, and I will sleep better at night as soon as we have some effective means of neutralizing her. That is all. Meeting adjourned, gentlemen."

* * *

SEELE's virtual meeting chambers were well defended indeed, but no security measure, be it computer security or otherwise, was ever truly impregnable. Case in point, everything that SEELE had discussed, and every bit of information that they'd just transmitted to one other over the course of their meeting had been picked up by a satellite that was currently orbiting the Earth.

The satellite didn't look like much; it was shaped like a metal sphere with a few antennae sticking out of it. There was no national emblem upon its casing. Indeed, the only embellishment on it at all was a not-quite upside down triangle formed by three green dots and two green lines.

Yet in spite of its plain appearance, the spy satellite contained technology that was _far_ more advanced than anything to be found on Earth.

And its mission at the blue world was complete.

Thrusters firing, the satellite rapidly moved away from the planet, escaping the blue world's orbit. It continued through the blackness of space for several hours, until it was a safe distance away from the Earth.

Then there was a flash of light as it engaged its hyperdrive, and the device was gone, on its way back to its creator.

* * *

The next morning, Asuka whistled cheerfully to herself as she worked in the kitchen. She had woken up earlier than usual that day, for once rising before Shinji did. Fortunately, ever since her powers had started to awaken in earnest, she'd found that, while she could still sleep for as long as she did before, she didn't actually need that much rest. So her early wake up wouldn't leave her tired and feeling irritable for the rest of the day.

_It is good to be Power Girl,_ she thought with a smirk, which related to the reason she'd gotten up early to begin with.

The new issue of the _Tokyo Tattler_ was coming out that morning, and Asuka was excited to see it. She felt confident that she'd snagged the cover again.

After finding herself awake, full of energy, and brimming with cheerful anticipation, the redhead had decided to do something that had become unusual for her indeed, namely cook breakfast.

_No toast and miso this morning!_ Asuka thought cheerfully to herself as she cracked a few eggs into a waiting frying pan where they began to sizzle. She continued whistling as she waited for them to be ready for turning over.

Part of her realized that it was crazy for her to be so happy over the adulation Power Girl received. Becoming a super heroine was something she'd regarded as a side activity from the very beginning, barely more than a hobby. Yet she really didn't give a damn; she hadn't felt so pleased with herself in a long time.

In fact, she mused as she looked down at the eggs, she felt so good that she practically expected her happiness to come shooting out of her, like—

Suddenly, orange beams of light shot out of pupils, striking the eggs she was working on and setting them on fire.

"Mein Gott!" Asuka exclaimed as the acrid smell of her cooking literally going up in flames assailed her nostrils.

Not bothering to wonder how she had done that just yet, Asuka began to frantically blow on the burning eggs, trying to put out the fire. Unfortunately, she seemed to only be fanning the flames at first, which caused the shocked and panicking redhead to take larger and larger inhalations before blowing again.

Finally, one particularly fierce effort on her part extinguished the small fire, and Asuka breathed a sigh of relief. However, her feelings of relief were quickly replaced by confusion and a touch of apprehension.

"How the hell did I do that?" she muttered to herself. "A new power?"

Obviously, she was going to have to experiment with this one, but she'd need to be careful about it. She didn't want to cause another huge fire like she had when she'd tested her strength at that dump.

Shaking her head, she looked down at her ruined eggs, and her brow crinkled into a frown at what she saw. The scorched eggs had _ice crystals_ on them, as did part of the frying pan.

"Okay, _that's_ weird," Asuka mumbled to herself.

"What's weird? And what's that smell?"

Asuka whirled around to see Shinji standing in the doorway to the kitchen. The Third Child had clearly just woken up; he was wearing track pants and a plain T-shirt, and his hair was mussed.

_He looks surprisingly cute when he first wakes up,_ she thought, then, _Ah! No, what am I __**thinking?!**_

"Asuka?" Shinji said when a moment passed without her responding to him.

"Oh, I was trying to make eggs. Uh, I guess my cooking skills are a little rusty," she grumbled, not liking how she looked like a fool in the kitchen because her new powers had chosen a bad moment to go off.

She quickly dumped the ruined eggs in the trash, then ran warm water over the frying pan to melt the quasi-frost on it before Shinji could take notice.

"You want me to cook?" Shinji asked.

"Don't be stupid," Asuka said. "Go shower and get dressed. I'll make breakfast. I won't burn down the apartment."

"There's time for me to cook and get ready," Shinji argued.

"But I want to leave early this morning," Asuka replied.

"Why do you…oh, right, magazine day," Shinji sighed. "All right, fine. I'll go get ready, but, uh, just make toast, okay?"

Asuka rolled her eyes. "Fine," she grumbled.

_I guess I can't really blame him for thinking I'll set the kitchen on fire,_ Asuka thought with a sigh. _No eggs this morning._

* * *

Disappointed as she was at having to eat toast for breakfast _again,_ the Second Child's mood had rebounded by the time they were approaching Asuka's favorite news stand.

"One copy of the _Tattler_, please," she said to the guy working the stand.

"Actually, make that two," Shinji said.

"Why do you want one?" Asuka asked, surprised.

Shinji barely seemed to pay attention to his immediate surroundings most of the time. The Aida stooge frequently knew more about NERV than the Third Child did, and Shinji never knew or cared to know any of the gossip that ran through their school. So why would he bother with a tabloid?

"Maybe I just want to see what you find so interesting," Shinji replied as he paid the vendor.

The idea of Shinji reading Power Girl stories made Asuka feel vaguely uneasy. The odds that he would recognize her were poor; with the exception of those first few pictures that were taken at that airfield, most photographs of Power Girl were snapped by amateurs on cell phone cameras and thus not of very high quality. She still didn't like it, but not even she could scold Shinji for emulating her.

"Well, let's get to school," Asuka said as she paid for her own copy, which, as she'd suspected, had a picture of her on the cover, holding that car she'd saved from driving into the river over her head.

_Score another one for Power Girl,_ she thought with a smirk.

The two of them arrived at school not much later, and the other two stooges quickly found them and approached.

"Hi, Shinji," Toji greeted. "Hello, Red."

"Suzuhara," Asuka replied curtly before peeling away from the little group, not noticing Toji's startled look.

Quickly locating the class rep, Asuka walked over to her friend. "Good morning, Hikari," she said cheerfully.

"Hello, Asuka," the pig tailed girl greeted. "You're certainly chipper this morning."

The redhead shrugged. "I've been on something of a winning streak for a while," she said. "I can't really talk about it much though."

Hikari just nodded at this, and Asuka knew that the class rep assumed she was referring to events at NERV. Even though she hadn't lied, the German still felt bad at deceiving her best friend in such a manner. However, much as she would have liked to tell people about her powers, she was unwilling to accept the risks that would come with that. Risks not just to her status as a pilot, but to whoever she shared the secret with as well.

_Power Girl's invincible. Power Girl's pal Hikari? Not so much,_ Asuka thought.

"So, Asuka, I was thinking about a trip to the mall. I'm feeling like I could use a little break from the home front," Hikari said, sounding a bit sheepish at admitting as much.

"Sure, but I think there are tests at NERV this evening, so today's out," Asuka said.

Hikari nodded. "Oh, class is about to start. You'd better to get to your desk."

Nodding, Asuka did so, sitting down just before the teacher walked in.

"Stand! Bow! Sit!" Hikari commanded as always.

Everyone obeyed, Asuka with her usual surreptitious eye roll at the unnecessary level of formality. Honestly, being ultra strict about these things didn't translate to a better education; this class was ample proof of that.

However, she didn't want to make trouble for her friend, so she just went along with it each morning.

"Good morning, class," the sensei said. "Today, we're going to be continuing our discussion of recent history."

_Big surprise there,_ Asuka thought sarcastically.

Like all the other students, the redhead waited for the teacher to become heavily engrossed in his lecture about how much better the world had been before Second Impact (something that did not take long), then began to do her own thing. Which, that morning, was getting out her copy of the Tattler and flipping it open to the cover story.

As usual, the article consisted of a brief summary of her latest feats, accompanied by a good deal of baseless speculation about her, most of which consisted of guesses on how she'd acquired her powers. A disproportionately large number of these involved radiation for some reason.

Such was the price of celebrity, she supposed.

"Hey, Shinji, whatcha got there?" she heard a familiar voice ask her housemate and fellow pilot.

The voice belonged to stooge number two, better known as Kensuke Aida. The otaku was speaking in hushed tones so as to avoid the teacher's notice, but Asuka had little difficulty hearing him, of course. She tuned into the conversation.

"It's just a tabloid," Shinji said. "The _Tokyo Tattler._"

"That's the one Ken's always buying, right?" Toji asked. "The one with the pictures of the super babes?"

"That's the one," Kensuke confirmed. "Didn't know you were into them, too, Shinji."

"I…I'm not, not really," Shinji stammered. "Asuka's been buying these things a lot lately, and I just wanted to try and figure out why."

"'I only read it for the articles,'" Kensuke said sarcastically with a muffled chortle.

"Speaking of her, where's the Devil, and who's the redheaded chick you came to school with today?" Toji asked, ignoring Kensuke.

"Huh?" Shinji replied, oblivious as ever.

"She called me by name instead of 'stooge.'" Toji said. "The Devil _never_ does that."

"It's not that strange," Shinji said. "Asuka's actually been pretty nice lately. It's like she's in a really good mood all the time."

"Why?" Toji asked.

"Uh, I don't know," Shinji confessed sheepishly. "I'm kind of afraid to ask."

At her desk, Asuka rolled her eyes.

_Typical Shinji,_ she thought.

"It's actually pretty nice to be around her when you're not worrying that she's going to blow up any second," the Third Child mused aloud, causing Asuka's heart to flutter for some inconceivable reason.

There was a brief, pregnant pause in the conversation.

"Dude…Shinji, you're not…are you?" Toji asked, practically pleading.

"Not what?" the Third Child asked, bewildered.

Asuka restrained the urge to groan. _How can anyone be that clueless?!_ She wondered.

"Never mind the Devil, let's see the magazine," Kensuke said, and Asuka heard a sound that she was pretty sure was stooge number two swiping Shinji's copy of the tabloid. "I haven't gotten this issue yet."

"Who's the cover girl?" Toji asked.

"Power Girl again," Kensuke replied. "That makes four weeks in a row."

"Hey, _I'm_ not complaining," Toji said. "Man, that girl is smokin' hot."

"She could snap you in two with one arm tied behind her back," Shinji pointed out.

"I'm not saying I wouldn't be on my best behavior if I actually met her," Toji said, and the irony caused Asuka to smirk. "Just that she's damn easy on the eyes."

"And come on, let's face it, _that's_ the real reason you bought the thing, not because Red's supposedly been picking them up lately," Kensuke said.

"Come on, Shin-man, you can tell us," Toji said in a conspiratorial tone. "What part of Power Girl do you like best? Her boobs? Her butt? Her thighs?"

"Her calves?" Kensuke added. "Her _naughty bits_?"

Asuka expected Shinji to sheepishly admit that he liked Power Girl's breasts or her ass or something, thus admitting that, yes, at least part of his motivation for buying the tabloid was so he could ogle the pictures of the superwomen within. He never would have confessed such a thing to _her_, of course, but he was in the company of other guys at the moment.

"Th-That's really not it," Shinji stammered. "I was just…curious is all. I wasn't thinking about…that."

Toji sighed heavily. "He's hopeless, 'Suke."

"That he is, Toji," Kensuke agreed. "Well, at least it leaves the field to Misato-sama clear for us real men."

Toji chuckled. "Yeah."

Rolling her eyes, Asuka "tuned out" from the conversation, which was wandering to other topics. Suzuhara and Aida had once more proven that they thought with the brains in their pants approximately 95 percent of the time, something that didn't surprise her in the least.

However, Shinji _had_ surprised her. Even when under pressure to act like a pervert from his friends, he…hadn't. And knowing Shinji as she did, she was very sure he hadn't simply maintained his original position out of stubbornness. He had meant what he'd said.

On the one hand, this caused Asuka's opinion of him to rise a notch. Apparently she'd made more mistaken assumptions about him. It wasn't at all fear of retribution that kept the Third Child from ever allowing his hands to wander around her; he seemed to genuinely have control of the hormones that his stooge friends were complete slaves to. Asuka was grudgingly impressed by that.

On the other hand, part of her was annoyed that Shinji hadn't been drooling at the sight of her in that leotard. This made _utterly_ no logical sense, but that was becoming par for the course where the baka and her emotions were concerned.

Shaking her head forcefully, Asuka put these thoughts firmly out of her mind.

* * *

The rain started right after Shinji and Asuka made it back home. It had been looking overcast all day, so the downpour didn't really surprise either of them. They were both simply grateful that they'd made it indoors before it started.

Others, however, had not been so fortunate, as was evidenced by the pounding on the door that started mere minutes after the two EVA pilots got home.

"Toji? Kensuke? Come in," Shinji said, mildly surprised to see his two friends outside.

"Thanks for letting us in, Shinji," Kensuke said as the Third Child went to get his friends towels.

"Man, it's really comin' down out there," Toji remarked.

"Hey, what are _they_ doing here?" Asuka demanded, poking her head out from behind the curtain that separated the apartment's bathroom area from the rest of it.

As a rule, she was never glad to see stooges one and two, and after hearing their perverted chatter earlier that day, she was even less pleased at their appearance than usual.

"Um, drying themselves?" Shinji said.

"A likely story," Asuka grumbled. "I'm changing in here, so if either of you two idiots peek, you're dead!"

"Who'd want to see a snake changing its skin?!" Toji snapped.

Asuka practically had to bite her tongue to keep herself from pointing out that he hadn't felt that way about her when he'd been ogling her picture earlier. Instead, she just disappeared behind the curtain again with a "hmph."

_Damn secret identity,_ she thought to herself as she began to shed her school uniform, cursing her inability to deliver the oh-so-perfect comeback.

"So where's Misato?" Kensuke asked eagerly.

"Asleep," Shinji answered. "She had to work late last night."

"Then we should be extra quiet so we don't disturb her sleep," Kensuke said in a whisper.

Toji nodded in fervent agreement. Shinji, who hadn't caught what his bespectacled friend had said, asked, "What?"

"Shhh!" both Toji and Kensuke scolded, ironically much more loudly than Shinji had been when he'd asked his question.

Yet all this effort proved to be for nothing, for Misato emerged from the hallway only a moment later.

"M-Misato-san," Kensuke stammered, "did we wake you?"

"No, I was already up," she said, then turned her attention to her two wards. "Shinji, Asuka, don't forget that there's a sync test tonight."

"Yes, ma'am," Asuka called back.

"Got it," Shinji replied.

"Good," Misato said. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go to work. I'll see you all later."

"Hey! Congratulations on your promotion, Misato-san!" Kensuke said.

"Thank you, Kensuke," Misato said, giving the freckled boy a rather forced smile before she departed.

"Misato got promoted?" Shinji asked.

"Yeah, she had two bars on her collar now," Kensuke said.

"I didn't know about that," Asuka said as she emerged from the bathroom area.

"Honestly, the two of you don't pay any attention to Misato at all," Kensuke said in a disgusted tone. "Do you think it's easy for that poor woman to look after the two of you and perform her duties at NERV? The least you two could do is show some appreciation."

Toji crossed his arms and nodded, fully in agreement with his friend's righteous rhetoric.

Asuka resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Misato had essentially tricked her into moving into the apartment, and Shinji did most of the housework. Still, the redhead had never been one to kill an excuse for a party, and if Misato had been promoted, some kind of celebration was in order, she supposed.

"So, where do you think we should order the food from?" Kensuke asked Toji.

"Hmm, how about…?"

"Are they already planning a party for Misato?" Asuka asked Shinji.

"Um, yeah, I think so," Shinji replied.

They both sweat dropped.

* * *

Later, after the intense but brief thunderstorm had passed and Toji and Kensuke had left, Shinji and Asuka set out for NERV so they could take the scheduled sync test. Even Shinji considered himself an old hand at this routine, and exactly two hours after the Children had submitted themselves to being sealed within the test plugs, they were released and told to report the control room.

"You've all done well today," Ritsuko said. "Rei, you've remained as stable as ever. Shinji, Asuka, you've both had a very good week, it seems."

"Hmm?" Shinji inquired.

"Your score increased by seven points since the last test one week ago," Ritsuko said. "Asuka, yours is up by just under six points."

Though this was extremely good for her, knowing that Shinji's gains exceeded her own, as usual, burned her.

Then a thought occurred to her, and Asuka did some quick math in her head, realizing that if her sync ratio continued to increase at this rate (which was a pretty big assumption, but one that Asuka was more than willing to make), and if Shinji's increases remained likewise steady, then she'd hit 100 percent before he could catch up to her.

Suddenly, Shinji's success didn't seem nearly as annoying as it had a minute ago.

"So, keep up the work. Dismissed," Ritsuko said. "Oh, Asuka, could you stay here for a moment?"

The redhead froze in mid step, the scientist's words instantly filling her with fear and dread.

_Do they know?_ She wondered. _Have they realized that something's not normal with me?_

"Don't look so distraught," Ritsuko said as Shinji and Rei filed out, "you haven't done anything wrong."

"Then what am I still here for?" Asuka asked, not letting her guard down yet.

"Well, you know as well as I do that the results of the last few sync tests haven't exactly been in keeping with your usual baseline," Ritsuko said.

_Oh, so that's what this is all about,_ Asuka thought, feeling relieved, and wondering why she hadn't realized it before. Clearly she was still too jumpy about being discovered.

Unlike the Third Child, Asuka's sync score had never increased by leaps and bounds; she had struggled for every single point, clawing her way up the synchronograph over a period of years. It was just one of the many reasons why Shinji Ikari could be so utterly infuriating.

Yet, ever since she'd taken on the identity of Power Girl, her score had been increasing only a little bit more slowly than Shinji's. Asuka wasn't sure if it was because she'd been feeling like she was on top of the world lately, or if it was a direct result of the incredible powers she was developing. All she knew was that she liked it.

"Yeah, so?" Asuka asked.

"Well, I was just wondering if you had any idea what was causing these increases," Akagi said.

"I've stopped eating red meat," Asuka deadpanned, "and I've been getting plenty of sun."

Akagi snorted. "I'd almost believe you if it wasn't for the fact that Rei's a vegetarian, and her score's the lowest. Now please, be serious."

"I really can't tell you," Asuka said with a shrug. "I guess I've just been having a good few weeks."

"Well, try and keep having good weeks," Ritsuko said. "You can go now."

Nodding, Asuka turned and departed without another word. Yet even after she'd left the room, she had no trouble listening in on the conversation that went on within it.

"You think she's telling the truth?" Akagi asked.

"No, at least not entirely," Misato replied. "I've definitely had the feeling that Asuka's been up to…something, lately. I don't know what, but she's been in better spirits than normal for about a month now."

"Well, the usual tox screen came up clear. Asuka's not doing drugs," Ritsuko said.

"That's what I like about you, Rits. You always have faith in the good that exists within the hearts of humanity," Misato said in a dry tone.

"So what do you think it might be, then?" Ritsuko asked, ignoring the quip. "Boyfriend?"

"Doubt it," Misato said. "She still makes goo-goo eyes at Kaji every chance she gets."

"So you have no idea at all?" Ritsuko asked.

"No, and before you ask, I don't intend to go snooping until I find out," Misato said.

"Why not?" Ritsuko asked.

Misato paused for a moment before answering. "I know that Asuka feels like we place adult responsibilities on her shoulders, while denying her adult freedoms and privileges, and to an extent she's right," she said. "We don't let the Children drive cars, we don't let them drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes, we wouldn't let them just sleep around if they were so inclined, I didn't let Shinji or Asuka live alone, and Asuka sure as hell won't be allowed to date the older men she seems so drawn to. Of course, we really _can't_ let the Children do these things, but that doesn't make it fair to them."

"Yes, so?"

"So maybe I want to allow Asuka some adult _privacy_, so long as I don't have reason to believe that whatever she's up to is bad or harmful," Misato said.

"That's rather…sentimental," Ritsuko said. "Arguably rather foolish, too."

"Look, the minute I think there might be something rotten going on, I'll do something," Misato said. "We treat these kids like they're components too damn much as it is. I just want to do right by them whenever I can."

"Fine, do what you want," Ritsuko said resignedly. "I guess I shouldn't be poking my nose into it, anyway. God knows I was never very good where the human element is concerned."

The conversation drifted to other matters after that, and Asuka ceased focusing her super hearing on them. A small smile formed upon her face, quite unlike the smug grin she'd been wearing only moments ago.

_I underestimated you, Misato,_ Asuka thought. _You get me better than I thought you did._

First Shinji and now Misato. The people around her were just full of surprises lately. And she'd always believed that she was such a good judge of character, too.

_I wonder who else I've made bad assumptions about?_ She thought. _Maybe Suzuhara's really a sensitive guy beneath that jock exterior? Or maybe Ayanami spends her off duty time seeking action and adventure?_

Asuka released a small giggle at the mental pictures these thoughts conjured up.

"What's so funny?"

Startled, Asuka looked up to see Shinji standing just outside the doors to the pilots' locker rooms. She'd been so deep in thought that she hadn't even noticed he was there.

"Private joke. So, judging by the way you're dressed, I'm guessing you want to hit the gym," Asuka said, taking note of the sweat pants and light, short sleeved T-shirt he was wearing.

"Well, yeah," Shinji said. "It's the right day."

"Sure, just let me rinse off the damn LCL and change, then we'll go," Asuka said.

* * *

Not much later, the two pilots had made their way down to the gym in NERV's recreation center, as they'd been doing regularly for some time now. At first, things went as they normally did, with the two of them alternating between working out and acting as the spotter for the other one, and not a lot of conversation being exchanged.

Then, Asuka's curiosity over a certain issue finally got the best of her.

"Say, Shinji, can I ask you something?" the Second Child said as they moved to another piece of equipment.

"Of course," he replied.

"What do you think of the city's superwomen?" Asuka asked.

Shinji's eyes widened, and he hesitated, clearly nervous about the question. With the exception of Power Girl, Asuka had far from approved of the city's superwomen.

The redhead gave an exasperated sigh. There were times when she almost forgot about his complete lack of a spine, and then he did things like this. It was almost as infuriating at his talent in EVA, in its own way.

"I asked you for your opinion, Third Child," Asuka said. "I'm not going to get mad at you when you give it to me."

"Um, well, I don't really know," Shinji said slowly. "I mean, I guess it's kind of…comforting to know that there are people out there who are so powerful and are looking out for us. But, uh, the Commander doesn't like them at all, and it makes me wonder if he's got a good reason for that."

"His reason probably has something to do with Wonder Girl's inglorious debut," Asuka grumbled.

It wasn't well known, but the blue haired superwoman's first appearance had come during the Jet Alone demonstration. Wonder Girl's attempts at bringing the disaster to an end had only exacerbated it, and Misato had been badly wounded. The Operations Director had seemed to be inevitably bound for the grave, but she'd made an utterly miraculous recovery instead. Regardless, NERV had had it in for Wonder Girl, and superwomen in general, ever since.

"Maybe," Shinji said. "It's weird that they don't help with the Angels, though."

Asuka just made a noncommittal noise in response to that. "Anyway, that's not really what I meant," she said.

"What did you mean, then?" Shinji asked.

"You were kind of talking about them like they were…concepts or something," Asuka said. "I want to know what you think of them as people. Do you think they're cool? Do you think they're hot?" she asked this last question in a sing-song voice.

Shinji flushed. "Why do you want to know?"

"I'm curious," Asuka said. "I'd think you of all people would have some kind of opinion on these girls. Hell, didn't you meet Wonder Girl once?"

"Only for a minute," Shinji said.

"You haven't answered my question yet," Asuka pointed out.

Shinji sighed. "If you really have to know, I think what the superwomen can do is...well, really incredible, and," he blushed, "yes, I think they're beautiful. But…"

Asuka frowned. "But?"

"They don't seem quite real, I guess," Shinji said. "I mean, Wonder Girl and Power Girl are like…celebrities. I'll probably never meet Wonder Girl again, and I may never see Power Girl with my own eyes at all. So I guess I don't really think about them too much."

Asuka smiled slightly, feeling begrudgingly impressed with Shinji for having the maturity to not be constantly drooling over women he couldn't have, unlike some people…

"Why do you hang out with those stooge friends of yours, anyway?" she asked.

"Huh? Where did _that_ come from?" Shinji asked, bewildered.

"Nowhere. Forget about it, Moe," Asuka said.

"Okaaay…"

* * *

Days later and light years away, a little metal object was coming home to roost. The object that had been orbiting the planet Earth not long ago had returned to its mother ship, which itself was orbiting a burning and ruined world at the moment.

Indifferent to the devastation below it as only a machine could be, the ship allowed the former satellite entry, one of its exterior hatches opening. The small probe obediently entered the space ship. Once inside, it found its proper place on a large rack where several of its mechanical siblings also sat and waited patiently.

Some period of time later, the door to the room where the probe sat opened, and a figure entered. Said figure was humanoid in appearance, being bipedal and generally possessing the same basic shape as a man, but no one would ever mistake him for a human.

This being walked over to the rack of waiting probes, and as he drew near to the first one in the line, the fingers on his right hand extended, becoming like cables. He plugged himself into the first probe and began downloading the information. When he was done, he silently moved onto the next one.

He repeated this process again and again until he connected himself to the probe that had been to Earth. As he rapidly downloaded all that the metallic scout had learned, he experienced something that occurred very rarely for him.

Surprise.

The organization known as SEELE didn't know how to interpret the data they had carefully gathered on the subject known as "Power Girl," but he did. He calculated there was an 87.76 percent chance that she was a descendant of the dead world of Krypton.

Considering that he had previously calculated that there was only a 0.0002 percent chance of any survivors of Krypton existing, this was a bit jarring even to him.

Not only that, but this SEELE organization was planning on completely remaking their planet into something totally unrecognizable from the Earth that currently existed. And their plans were schedule to reach fruition long before he expected to visit that region of space. This was unacceptable.

Clearly, he would have to place a higher priority on traveling to Earth.

* * *

"This a pretty nice thing you're doing, Asuka," Hikari commented as the two girls walked along the streets of Tokyo-3 together, headed for Misato's apartment building. "I thought you didn't like Katsuragi-san all that much."

"Well, she's been pretty good to me lately, so I thought I'd pick something up for the party those two stooges are throwing for her promotion," Asuka said, gesturing toward the sizable platter of shrimp cocktail she'd just purchased.

Really, Asuka mused, it was small thing next to Misato actually deciding not to go snooping into her affairs. _That_ would have complicated Asuka's life considerably, and she probably would have had to seriously cut back on the time she spent with her cape on to avoid being discovered.

And maybe, just maybe, she was a little bit touched by the knowledge that Misato tried to treat her like an adult…

_Gott, why am I being so damn mushy lately?_ Asuka wondered. _Misato did something for me, so I'm doing something for her. That's all there is to it._

"Also, I'm in a good mood because Kaji's gonna be at the party!" the redhead added, directing her thoughts back to the immediate future.

"You mean that cool guy who always has that unshaven look?" Hikari asked.

"That's the one," Asuka said cheerfully. "I tell you, Hikari, the difference between him and the stooges is like night and day."

"Hmm," Hikari replied noncommittally.

"Anyway, I know you wanted to go to the movies or the mall or something, but I really can't miss this party. I hope you're all right with that."

"It's fine, Asuka," Hikari replied. "Just being out of the house and not having to cook is good enough for me, though I don't even want to think about how my sisters are faring without me." She added ruefully.

"So they have to order take out food instead of eat your cooking," Asuka said. "What's the worst that could happen?"

"Last time I left them to fend for themselves, they started arguing _while_ they were placing their order at a pizza place," Hikari said, groaning at memory. "The guy taking the order got all confused, and they ended up getting ten pizzas delivered to the house—half of them meat lover's specials and the other half of them veggie pizzas."

Despite herself, Asuka snickered at the thought of the middle Horaki sister returning home to find a huge stack of pizza boxes sitting on the kitchen table, and her younger and older sister looking sheepishly at her, silently begging the surrogate matron not to kill them.

"Are you afraid they're going to do that again?" Asuka asked.

"Nope," Hikari said. "I made sure there won't be a repeat of _that_ any time soon, but who knows what else they might get into?"

Asuka smiled approvingly. "What did you do to them?"

"Just made them eat those pizzas for dinner every night until they were gone," Hikari said innocently. "It is wrong to waste food, after all."

Asuka laughed, just able to imagine how sick of pizza the two of them must have been by the time the result of their little debacle was over.

"Well done," Asuka said.

Hikari shrugged modestly, to which Asuka just shook her head. The redhead didn't envy her best friend her burdens, and she had more than once decided that Hikari had to have the patience of a saint to put up with as much as she did.

_I wouldn't have so much tolerance for her older sister's goofs, that's for sure,_ she thought. _Honestly, Kodama really should be able to take care of herself._

This train of thought came to a halt as the two of them reached the apartment and building up to Misato's apartment. A sign had been hung on the door in Aida's fairly neat but inelegant kanji. Asuka didn't bother translating the whole thing; she could get the gist of it easily enough. It said something about a "private party" for Misato. Asuka rolled her eyes as they entered.

"Hi, everybody," Asuka said to the group inside, which currently consisted of the three stooges. "Sorry we're late. I wanted to pick up something for the party."

"Why?" Toji asked, clearly bewildered at the idea of Asuka pitching in. "And what's the class rep doing here?"

"I invited her, stupid," Asuka growled. "And are only knuckle draggers like you allowed to do something for Misato?"

"Hey, this is supposed to be a party, people," Misato said, emerging from another room. "Let's not fight. Ooo, shrimp."

Asuka set the tray of seafood down on the table, eyeing the sash Misato had on as she did so. She could make out the words "congratulations" and "promotion." Obviously, one of the stooges had made the thing for her.

_Oh, that is _incredibly_ lame,_ Asuka decided, but held her peace on the subject. It wasn't like _she_ was being asked to wear the thing.

The doorbell rang then, and the redhead's heart leaped. "That's gotta be Kaji!"

The door to the apartment slid open, and while Kaji was indeed there, both Asuka and Misato scowled upon seeing that he was arriving along with a certain faux blonde.

"I ran into her on the way here, so we decided to come together," Kaji said, seeming to read the two ladies' minds.

"A likely story," Asuka and Misato said in unison, then turned to each other and exchanged surprised looks.

"Well, congratulations on your promotion, Katsuragi," Kaji said. "I guess I'm going to have to start being polite to you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Misato asked.

_How can she talk and drink beer at the same time? _Asuka wondered.

The rest of the party went about as Asuka would have expected. Suzuhara continued to be a world-class stooge, Shinji spent the evening looking vaguely confused as to how he'd ended up in a place with so many other people, and it was very loud and surprisingly fun.

In the days that followed, things were surprisingly normal. The Commanders departed for some weird expedition for Antarctica, but other than that, everything was perfectly routine.

It was like the world was holding its breath, and Asuka wasn't very surprised when it ended.

* * *

_It looks like blood,_ Fuyutski mused to himself as he stood next to Gendo on one of the enclosed observation decks of the huge warship they were currently aboard.

The old professor knew intellectually that the Antarctic Sea wasn't blood, not really, but it was a hard thing to convince himself of emotionally. Especially considering that four billion people had died when this crimson ocean had been created.

"A world devoid of life," Fuyutski mused aloud. "This is the true Dead Sea."

"Not so devoid of life," Gendo replied. "We are here."

"Only because we're protected by the power of science," Fuyutski countered.

"Science is what makes man powerful," Gendo said.

Fuyutski shook his head. "That self-righteous attitude is exactly what led to the tragedy of ten years ago."

The corners of Gendo's lips quirked upwards into the ghost of smirk. It was amazing how willfully naïve the man who had once been obsessed with uncovering and exposing the truth had become since getting onto NERV's payroll.

"Arrogant or not, we must make use of the Fruit of Knowledge," Gendo said. "It is the power we have."

"And what fruit do the superwomen possess?" Fuyutski asked, feeling an almost childish need to score a point off the younger man.

Gendo looked like he was about to say something, but he was interrupted by the crackling of a nearby intercom.

"Commander Ikari, there's a telex from Tokyo-3," a voice spoke. "An Angel has been sighted in orbit."

"Acknowledged," was Gendo's curt response.

"Do you think we'll get this one?" Fuyutski asked.

"We had better," Gendo replied.

* * *

The arrival of one of their enemies was something that always filled Asuka with nervous, giddy anticipation. However, as Misato outlined the plan for dealing with it, Asuka felt that anticipation turning into disbelief.

"You want us to catch it in our hands?" she asked.

"Yes," Misato answered simply.

The Tenth Angel was currently several miles above the surface of the Earth, and it had been dropping little pieces of itself for hours now. Every time it did, the impacts got closer to Tokyo-3. The MAGI believed that it would launch a suicide attack and send its entire body toward the Earth once it was sure it would destroy the city in the impact.

And since both the Commanders were away, Misato was ultimately the one in charge. She'd chosen a head on confrontation between the EVA's and the Angel, which out massed all three of NERV's killing machines many, many times over.

"What happens if we miss it?" Shinji asked.

"We'll all be blown to bits," Misato replied.

"What if the EVA's can't take the strain?" Asuka asked.

"We'll all be blown to bits," Misato repeated.

"If this works it'll be a miracle," Asuka grumbled.

"Miracles don't just happen," Misato said sternly, "they're something people make happen."

There was a pause.

"Listen, I won't order any of you to participate in this mission," Misato said. "If you want out, just say so."

The three pilots remained silent.

"I see," Misato said. "In that case, regulations state that each of you need to make out a will. Have you done so?"

"I don't need to write a will," Asuka crossing her arms.

_Really, I don't,_ she added silently. She wasn't entirely sure, but she was fairly confident she could survive even if the mission was to fail catastrophically.

"Neither do I," Rei said. "There's no point."

"Yeah, I won't make one, either," Shinji agreed.

Misato nodded. "You report to the cages in one hour."

* * *

Approximately sixty minutes later, the three Children, now clad in their plug suits, boarded an elevator inside the cages, bound for their entry plugs. The redhead surreptitiously glanced at her to fellow pilots as the car ascended, silently worried for them. Unlike her, they didn't have a good chance of survival if the mission went awry.

Reluctant though she might have been to admit it, she had come to consider Shinji a friend. For a baka with an often infuriating talent for EVA piloting, he could be surprisingly good company. And in those rare moments when he showed hints of growing a spine, or at least not having a total lack of one, she even found him kind of…

Shaking her head slightly before she could complete the thought, Asuka turned her attention to Rei. In truth, the blue haired pilot kind of gave her the creeps, but that didn't mean that she wanted to see Rei _dead_.

Besides, thanks to listening to Shinji recounting the battle against the Fifth Angel and Rei's part in it (it was a wonder that no one else ever told her these things!), Asuka knew that, creepy or not, Rei could be relied upon at clutch time. And when she came right down to it, there wasn't a whole lot more she could ask of her wingmates.

"Asuka?" Shinji spoke up.

"What is it, Shinji?" she replied.

"Why do you pilot EVA?" he asked.

The question, coming from out of the blue as it did, caught Asuka by surprise. She almost gave him a superficial answer on reflex, like telling him she did it to show the world how great she was.

Then she stopped herself, recalling how Shinji had told her about himself that first time they went to the gym together, and how she had more recently dragged his opinion on the superwomen out of him. She owed him more than the most shallow of answers.

"Because it's…who I am," she said, finding it harder to express the sentiment she wanted to convey than she would have expected.

"Huh?"

"I've been training to pilot EVA for almost as long as I can remember," Asuka said. "If I stopped piloting, it would be like throwing my whole life up to now away."

This wasn't exactly right; it was true, but it didn't truly explain the full reason she piloted. However, Asuka didn't know how to better get it across, at least not without sharing some of her deepest, darkest secrets with him, so it would have to suffice.

Fortunately, Shinji seemed content with this.

"What about you, Shinji?" Asuka asked. "Why do you do this?"

"I don't know," he said.

Asuka blinked. Piloting an Evangelion was a hell of a thing to do, especially for someone who'd been so cruelly drafted into the job as Shinji had been. Asuka could understand why he'd submit to being forced into it while Rei was still recovered and she was still half a world away, but now?

"Are you insane?" she asked.

"Maybe I am," Shinji sighed heavily.

"I don't get you, Third Child," Asuka said, shaking her head.

* * *

The worst part of a battle was never the battle itself, Asuka had learned. The actual combat passed quickly, in a sort of adrenaline-soaked haze in which there was little room for emotion. The aftermath of a battle could often be pretty bad, depending on what had happened during the battle, but it wasn't always terrible.

The part that pretty much _always_ sucked was the part before the battle, where it's just you, your fears, and the knowledge that the enemy was coming.

This time was rather strange for her; never before had she been so utterly unafraid for her own personal safety. Though her mind was telling her it was entirely possible that she could very well die if she and the others failed to make the catch, on some instinctual level she felt totally certain that this wasn't so.

Which wasn't to say that she wasn't afraid. If anything, the knowledge that she'd come out alive just made her _more_ afraid of failure. Unbidden, the image of the worst possible outcome of that day sprang into her mind: the city shattered, the EVA's destroyed, the other pilots dead, Misato dead…and herself alive, sitting alone in the smoking crater that remained. The thought made her shudder.

_Geeze, what the hell is wrong with you? You are the _best_ EVA pilot, _and_ you are _Power Girl! _Nothing's going to happen while _you're_ on the job!_ A voice in her head shouted. _Even if the odds of our success about a zillion to one…_

Asuka sighed. She really hadn't needed that last thought.

_Well, at least Misato's intuition isn't as horrible as her choice of lottery numbers would suggest,_ she thought, observing the Angel with the aid of her super vision. _We could barely have been placed better._ _Now, thankfully, we should be told to go right about…_

"NOW!" Misato ordered over the radio.

Instantly, Asuka ejected the umbilical cable from her EVA. The mission would be accomplished or failed before any of the Evangelions could run out of power; the cord would just slow her down.

That taken care of, Asuka threw Unit Two into a sprint. Under her command, the crimson titan's feet barely seemed to touch the ground; if not for the great footprints the EVA left in the soft earth and the shattered pavement it left on the streets, an observer might have believed that the war machine really was running on air as it became a scarlet blur.

_It's so…slow,_ Asuka thought, a frown forming over her face.

As fast as she could make her EVA run, Asuka herself could run or fly much more quickly.

It was an extremely weird sensation for the Second Child. She had always felt incredibly powerful and practically invincible when she piloted EVA. Yet since the emergence of her powers, she'd actually been feeling weak, vulnerable, and now slow when she piloted the scarlet engine of war.

She found this more than a little disturbing.

_Ignore it. Focus on the mission, damn you,_ she told herself.

"Hey, guys?" Misato said, sounding unusually uncertain.

"Kind of busy here, Misato," Asuka grumbled.

"There's something you should know about," Misato continued, ignoring Asuka. "We just detected another object that's nearly the size of the Angel."

"Not _another Angel?!_" Asuka exclaimed, already looking about with her super vision, even as she kept Unit Two moving in its powerful sprint.

"No," Misato said. "Whatever it is, there's no blue pattern."

After a few seconds of frantic searching, Asuka finally managed to locate the second object, and it was indeed, no Angel. Actually, it looked like a space ship, albeit one that was shaped a bit like a giant dust buster.

_The hell?_ Asuka wondered.

As she watched, a beam of milky white light shot out from the front of the ship, striking the back of the Angel. At first, it seemed like it wasn't doing anything, then the part of the Angel it was touching bulged outwards, being kept in place as the rest of it descended.

_A tractor beam?_ Asuka wondered. _Could this thing get any more sci-fi?_

Suddenly, there was a spray of blue blood, and Asuka saw a ruby sphere trapped within the pull of the tractor beam, now quite separate from the rest of the Angel. However, it didn't last long before the beam of light it was trapped inside shattered it.

"We've lost track of the Angel's blue pattern!" she heard Makoto shout.

Asuka nearly told them that it was dead before she realized that she shouldn't have been capable of seeing what she'd seen. Instead she just shouted, "Blue pattern or not, the thing's still falling!"

"I got it!" Shinji said, and Asuka realized that Unit One was cresting the hill where the Angel's carcass was sure to fall.

_No AT Field, this'll be a piece of cake,_ Asuka thought.

It was at approximately that moment that the whole world turned white as the Angel's body exploded. Asuka shut her eyes and grimaced as she felt a painfully intense wave of heat sweep over her body, thanks to her link with Unit Two.

_Damn, guess the Angel's body was made of something pretty damn volatile,_ she thought. _A kamikaze through and through._

Well, that was one problem dealt with, though Asuka certainly would have preferred to have been the one to reach the Angel first, even if the kill had been stolen from them. Speaking of which…

"What the hell is the other thing?" she asked.

"Whatever it is, it's transmitting a message on all frequencies," Aoba replied.

With a thought, Asuka opened up a communications window on her HUD, displaying what the spaceship was transmitting. An image of a green-faced being appeared on the screen. On his forehead was a not-quite triangle, formed by three dark green dots and two lines.

"Greetings, people of Earth," the alien said in a perfectly flat voice. "I am Brainiac. I come in peace."

* * *

**Author's Notes**: I have had this chapter on my hard drive for a while now, I've been picking at it almost the whole time, and I'm still not satisfied with it. And of course, my beta reader's having computer problems, so he couldn't help me as much as usual.

I wanted to let Asuka enjoy her little power trip (and let everyone else enjoy her resulting good mood) for a chapter before various realities start intruding, but it never quite felt like it came together. Bleh, well, anyone who's familiar with DC comics has a pretty decent idea of what's coming up next chapter, and I'm confident _that_ chapter will come together just fine.

By the way, in case anyone felt that Asuka was too nice here, well, for one thing, Asuka was about as nice as she ever got at this point in the timeline. I also really believe it would improve her disposition if she was getting her ego stroked, even if it was for non-EVA related achievement. Still, I tried not to lay it on too thick, though I realize I might have done so anyway.

One thing I'd like to clear up, because there have been a lot of questions about it in reviews on the various SOE2 fics: all the stories are in their own separate continuity. A few of the women aside from the main one in each fic might also have super powers, but in no story is every lady a superwoman. This is basically the way in works in the original SOE series as well.

Anyway, thanks as always to my readers and reviewers. Now enough of my whining. Let's have some fun.

* * *

Omake!

Fun with: Exotic Kryptonite

It was a perfectly ordinary day for Shinji Ikari. There had been no Angel attacks, school had been the very definition of mundane, and he didn't have to go into NERV. Nothing could have been more ordinary.

He should have known that it wasn't going to last.

Shinji was returning to the apartment, and he spotted a small box wrapped in brown paper that had been left just outside the door. Curious, he picked it up and was surprised to find that the package was addressed to him.

"Wonder who'd send me something," he muttered as he entered the apartment.

Going over to the kitchen table, he unwrapped the package, finding a lead box along with a note inside. His curiosity growing even greater, he unfolded the note and read it aloud.

"'Dear Shinji, I realize that living with a temperamental redhead with superpowers is probably stressful for you. Therefore, I'm giving you a gift that will hopefully give you some peace of mind. Inside the box that came with this is a chunk of kryptonite.'"

Blinking, Shinji looked down at the box. While knowing that things would be _really_ bad if Asuka seriously lost her temper, he still didn't want to have the power to kill her in a box. He looked down at the letter and continued reading.

"'Don't worry, this isn't the generic green kryptonite. This special kryptonite won't hurt her. It _will_ take her attention off of you for a while, however.'"

_Oh, well, that's good,_ he thought. _I wonder what this special kryptonite looks like._

Before he indulged his curiosity, he decided to finish reading the letter. "'By the way, don't open the box unless you need to use the contents. The radiation won't affect humans the same way it will kryptonians, but it's still bad for you. Sincerely, Mike313.'"

_Man, this is weird,_ Shinji thought. _It's like he knew exactly what I'd think._

Looking down at the box, the Third Child mused that it was nice to have a little insurance, but with how cheerful Asuka had been lately, he didn't think he'd really need it.

Then he noticed that there was more to the letter.

"'P.S. I told Asuka that you've been stealing her panties.'" Shinji's face went pale. "Oh, _crap_. I wonder how long I have before—"

"SHINJI! YOU PERVERT!"

"_Crap_!" Shinji exclaimed, and began to frantically fiddle with the clasp on the box, his fingers made clumsy by panic.

"I KNOW YOU'RE IN HERE!" Asuka roared, definitely getting closer. "I CAN SEE YOU!"

He finally managed to get the box open _just_ as Asuka ripped the front door off its hinges and burst into the apartment. Shinji held the box and its crystalline contents up like a shield as she rounded on him.

"What is _that_?!" Asuka demanded, pointing at the chunk of crystal.

"Uh…" Shinji stuttered, peering inside the box. "It's…pink."

"Whatever it is, it's making me feel weird," Asuka said.

"Like…less hostile?" Shinji asked hopefully.

"No!" Asuka snapped.

"Oh, well, um…"

"What the hell happened to the door?!"

_Misato!_ Shinji thought, looking over Asuka's shoulder at the doorway. _And Kaji!_

Asuka turned and Shinji saw her smile that seductive little grin she wore whenever she was in the long haired man's presence.

_I'm saved,_ he thought. _Kaji will distract her!_

"Hello there," Asuka drawled, "Misato."

The other three people present blinked in confusion.

"Asuka?" Kaji asked tentatively.

"What are _you_ doing here?" Asuka demanded. "We're busy! Scram!"

Before Kaji could say anything or even begin to leave of his own volition, the super powered redhead grabbed him and literally threw him out of the apartment. Then she focused her blue eyes on her voluptuous guardian.

"Um, Asuka, I don't know what's come over you, but…"

The redhead suddenly advanced toward Misato, sweeping the older woman off her feet and holding her bridal style. Shinji only watch as she literally flew into Misato's bedroom.

Shinji stood there, alone in the kitchen for several seconds. Then, slowly, he began to walk toward the bedroom, telling himself every step of the way that he should probably find someplace else to be for a few hours, but somehow unable to heed his own wisdom.

His eyes widened to the size of saucers as he peered through the open door. Apparently, Asuka had had little difficulty convincing Misato; the purple haired woman looked like she was enjoying herself. A lot.

Almost as much as Asuka, in fact.

Walking like a zombie, Shinji made his way back to the kitchen. He picked up the phone and dialed mechanically. After two rings, a familiar voice came over the line.

"Hello?"

"Kensuke," Shinji said, "whatever you're doing, drop it, and get over here now. And for the love of god, _bring your camera._"


	6. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC Comics or anything associated with it, and I am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Five: **Metal Madness

On the face of it, it looked like the most dramatic mismatch that had ever been seen on Earth, David and Goliath to the nth power.

At one side of the empty valley stood the towering form of Evangelion Unit Zero. The cyclopean giant was unarmed, but considering that the tallest tree in the area barely reached the blue colossus's ankles, that hardly seemed to matter.

Its opponent looked like a mere speck in comparison, even though it weighed in at over three tons and would easily dwarf any human seen next to it. Unlike the EVA it faced, this thing was a pure robot. It looked very vaguely humanoid, with a triangular "torso" but no head. Thin arms that ended in large mechanical gauntlets were attached to this torso, and beneath it was a small weapons turret. On the torso itself was the almost-triangle emblem formed by three green dots and two lines which had rapidly become familiar to the people of Earth.

The two opponents seemed to stare each other down for a long moment, and the entire valley was seized by an almost preternatural calm. Not even the birds that called the valley home dared to make a sound.

Then, apparently receiving some unseen signal, the relatively little robot rushed forward toward the blue titan. Flying through the air with no visible means of propulsion, it halved the distance between itself and Unit Zero in seconds.

The one-eyed Evangelion lashed out at the robot with an arm, attempting to swat it out of the air like a mere fly. It certainly had the strength to do so, but the robot was too small and quick for it and managed to dodge the blow. Red light suddenly flared around the weapon turret it was equipped with, and a beam of crimson energy lanced out, striking Unit Zero in the chest.

Inside the entry plug, the barest trace of a grimace flickered over Rei Ayanami's face. Transmitted via her neural link with her EVA, the pain from the attack had felt like getting poked with a pin.

Immediately, a window labeled "FROM COMMAND" opened up on her HUD, but it was not Major Katsuragi like it usually was. Instead, she faced the unsmiling gaze of Commander Ikari.

"Report," he ordered curtly.

"The drone's weapon was able to strike Unit Zero, even though I had my AT field up," Rei said.

"Understood," Gendo replied. "You're finished, Rei. Return to base."

"Roger," Rei said.

She closed the channel and commanded Unit Zero to turn around, guiding the blue giant back toward the Evangelion lift that would take it to its cage. The victorious little robot began to fly back to the giant ship which had hovered over the largest of the Ashinoko lakes for the past two weeks, the sunlight shining off its hull.

* * *

Meanwhile, back in the NERV command center, the senior staff and the other two pilots were all present, had watched the little match up on the room's mammoth main screen.

Commander Ikari had just told Rei to come back when the great holographic display of a tactical map flickered and abruptly changed, becoming an image of Brainiac from the chest up.

"I trust this demonstration has proven that my claims of possessing extensive knowledge of AT field theory were not exaggerated," the alien said, and despite his perfectly flat tone, he still managed to sound smug about his victory. "Even such a small unit as the one I employed for this test can easily be installed with the hardware necessary for it to the ignore the AT field."

"Indeed, Brainiac," Commander Ikari replied, somehow sounding far more emotionless than the actual robot. "You have proven the value of what you're offering us."

"Good," Brainiac replied. "Then I trust we can soon commence with the exchange of information?"

"Not quite yet," Gendo said, tenting his fingers in front of his face. "There are certain issues that must be taken into account first."

Most of the people present in the command center turned to look at him in a silent wave of confusion. Shortly after arriving with a bang by tearing out the Tenth Angel's core with his space ship's tracker beam, Brainiac had informed the people of Earth that he was an interstellar collector of information. He had claimed to have considerable knowledge of AT fields which would make thwarting the Angels significantly easier, and he had offered to trade it in exchange for knowledge of Earth's history, cultures, and wildlife.

So far as anyone knew, skepticism about whether Brainiac actually possessed this information was the only sticking point. The UN General Assembly was certainly enthusiastic enough about the potential transaction, so it seemed very strange that Gendo was still postponing it.

Half the people on the command center wouldn't have been surprised if Brainiac had decided to take his "business" elsewhere. Gendo and NERV were more or less in charge of humanity's side of the situation simply because the extraterrestrial had refused to leave the Tokyo-3 area since his arrival.

And probably, everyone whispered in private, because the Commander had threatened people to keep the diplomats that the UN was undoubtedly itching to send away from the city.

Fortunately, Brainiac himself seemed to be the only one unperturbed by the continued procrastination on NERV's part to actually engage in the deal. The mechanical being just nodded very slightly and said, "I see. In that case, please contact me as soon as you are ready to trade."

And with that, the hologram of Brainiac disappeared, replaced by the familiar sight of the tactical map.

Everyone kept looking up at the Commander, the question they all had in mind shining in their eyes. He soundly ignored the lot of them, instead turning to Misato.

"Major Katsuragi, you have the conn," he said, then pressed a button on his chair.

The section a floor and he and Fuyutski were standing on began to sink, and seconds later, the personal lift had whisked the two commanders away from the base's nerve center.

For several moments after they'd left, nobody spoke. Finally, Makoto broke the silence.

"What was _that_ about?" he wondered aloud.

Misato sighed. "I don't know. Probably involves politics somehow," she said with a scowl of distaste. "Make sure that cage four is ready for Unit Zero's return. Shinji, Asuka, you can go. It looks like I'm stuck here for a while."

The two pilots nodded and left the command center (using a door rather than a fancy personal lift). They were both so lost in their own thoughts that they didn't speak to each other at all until they'd reached the surface.

"I wonder why Father is delaying things," Shinji finally broke the quiet.

"What? It's not hard to figure out," Asuka grumbled. "He probably doesn't trust the metal freak."

Shinji's eyebrows went up. "You don't think that Brainiac is what he says he is?" he asked.

"You do?" Asuka demanded. "Gott, Third Child, but are you so dense that when somebody comes out of the sky and offers you a solution to all your problems you don't even think to question it?"

Shinji flinched. He'd become used to the mellower demeanor Asuka had been displaying for a while, and he hadn't yet adapted back to her more bellicose attitude, which had returned shortly after Brainiac's arrival.

"I'm sorry," he said, which got a disgusted sigh from her in response. "But it just seems to me that if Brainiac meant us harm, he would have done it already. He does have that great big space ship, and probably all kinds of advanced weapons."

"You are _such_ a baka," was Asuka's only reply.

In truth, her main reason for thinking that Brainiac wasn't on the up-and-up was that she didn't want him to be. If he was, and the data transaction occurred, it might well become possible for conventional forces to destroy the Angels. That would mean the beginning of the end of the Evangelion project.

She supposed Shinji could be excused for wanting that to happen, considering how he'd come to be a pilot, but with her world abruptly on the verge of collapse, Asuka wasn't feeling very lenient.

_Damn Ayanami,_ she thought angrily. _**I **__would have been able to smack that little gadget out of the air no problem._

If the military could beat the Angels without the EVA's, it would make everything she'd been trained to be for ten years unnecessary, unworthy of note, unwanted.

She shuddered at the idea, and remembered that even if EVA were to end, she would still be special.

Asuka then scowled, annoyed with herself. She didn't want to be worthy of notice just because she was Power Girl; being a superwoman was just…just an extra activity for her, barely more than a hobby, really. It was only something she could do because she had powers and abilities she'd never even worked for. Piloting EVA was her whole life, and Brainiac might well bring an end to that.

And as if that wasn't enough of a reason for her to loath the artificial life form, she hadn't graced the cover of the _Tokyo Tattler_ in two weeks now, thanks to Brainiac.

"What would you do?" she asked abruptly.

"Huh?"

"If EVA wasn't needed anymore, and NERV was shut down," Asuka clarified. "What would you do?"

Shinji frowned as he briefly pondered the question. "I…I guess I'd have to go back to my uncle's place," he said. "There wouldn't be any more use for me here."

She saw his eyes become downcast as he took this into account, and Asuka felt a malicious sort of triumph surge through her at having put him into this state. At least now he realized that the end of the Evangelion project wouldn't be all sunshine and roses, even from his perspective.

"What about you?" he asked, quietly. "What would you do?"

Asuka shrugged nonchalantly, even as part of her recoiled in horror at picturing such a future. "Go back to Germany, I guess," she said. "Start working on my masters degree or find a job. I never really thought about it much."

She came dangerously close to adding that she'd miss him if this depressing scenario played out. Asuka bit her tongue the moment she realized she was about to say this; saying such a thing would make her sound like a stupid little girl who was dependant upon him.

Still, she was surprised the thought had even crossed her mind. _Would_ she miss baka Shinji, a kicked puppy of a boy turned Evangelion pilot who dared to challenge her position as top pilot, if they were separated? It seemed absurd, but she realized that she would.

_Gott, what's becoming of me?_ She wondered.

She was still wondering when the two of them reached the apartment.

* * *

It was official, Gendo thought grimly, SEELE was in panic mode.

Normally, the sight of the old men so frantic amused him; their fear at the most trivial of unforeseen events only served to reinforce his belief that he could adapt better than they could and would triumph over them in the end.

This day, however, he couldn't relish their anxiety the way he normally did.

"If Evangelion becomes unnecessary to the task of destroying the Angels, the effects on the scenario will likely be disastrous," SEELE-11 said.

"Indeed," SEELE-12 agreed. "For Instrumentality to commence as we desire, it will require the use of Unit One at the very least. If they are dismantled…"

Gendo didn't bother asking if they couldn't get the UN to reject Brainiac's offer. SEELE's influence was vast, but even they couldn't make hundreds of elected officials very publicly reject an offer for technology that could save them all.

Fortunately, he, as always, was not without a plan. "We must accept the current events and adapt to meet them."

"And just how, Ikari, are we supposed to do that?" SEELE-03 asked, the sneer that his holographic monolith didn't show clearly audible in his voice.

"Allow Brainiac to link with the Tokyo-3 MAGI as he desires before he gives up on the endeavor and seeks a new source of information about this world," Gendo said. "NERV will control the new anti-Angel technology as it controlled the old, thus preventing the organization from becoming obsolete. When and if it seems that the Evangelions have become unnecessary, we place them into cryo-stasis before anyone can suggest dismantling them. When the time comes, we can remove the essential elements for Instrumentality from storage and commence with the final stage of the scenario as originally planned. It's not a perfect outcome for the situation, but it is the only acceptable one."

There was a moment of silence in the chamber. Had their monolithic avatars allowed them to, the members of the SEELE council would have traded looks. A lot of opportunities for potentially necessary research into the nature of the Angels and the Evangelions would be missed if the EVA's had to be placed into cryo-stasis for the majority of the war.

Even worse, if they had to make NERV the sole custodian of the AT field negation technology, it was a certainty that Gendo would take the opportunity to _not_ share all of it with SEELE, giving him yet another leg up over them.

Yet none of them could currently come up with another idea to stave off the complete collapse of their carefully crafted scenario, and time was short. They could not delay the exchange of information for much longer.

"Very well, Ikari," Keel said at last. "You have our permission to allow the data transfer."

"Thank you," Gendo replied. "If that is all…"

"It is," Keel answered.

The hologram of Gendo vanished without a word, leaving the twelve monoliths alone.

"We're not actually going to let this all unfold according to Ikari's plan, are we?" SEELE-02 asked the moment he was gone.

"There are months between now and when the last Angel is due to arrive. A great deal of things can happen in such a long period of time," Keel replied. "Ikari's won this round. Once that alien is gone, however, our options will multiply."

* * *

"Preparing for data transfer," the image of Brainiac on NERV's main screen said. "Is everything ready on your end?"

"Nearly, Brainiac," Ritsuko replied, looking over Maya's shoulder at the technician's screen. "Some of the hardware we're using for this has been newly installed for the occasion. It may take us a few more minutes to get everything ready."

"Take your time," Brainiac told her magnanimously.

Watching all this play out, Asuka felt sick to her stomach, knowing that the information which would render her and her beautiful Unit Two obsolete would soon be streaming from Brainiac's ship into the MAGI.

She was sorely tempted to bolt from the command center, fly up to the city above them, finding the fancy new dish NERV had placed atop a skyscraper, and tear the thing down with her bare hands. She might well have done so, too, if not for the knowledge that doing _that_ would also ensure she'd never be allowed to pilot again, either.

Indeed, she had seriously considered flying up to that damn robot's ship as Power Girl well before this and telling him to get his shiny metal ass far, far away from the planet.

She hadn't in the end, though, because despite having learned at the tender age of four that she had to look out for herself because no one else would, she just couldn't bring herself to be that colossally selfish. She wasn't an idiot; she knew just how much EVA cost, and how many people weren't being helped because the money had to go toward Project-E.

And maybe she hadn't wanted to flush her alter ego's reputation straight down the toilet.

And maybe part of her hadn't really believed this moment would actually come.

"All right," Ritsuko said, jarring Asuka from her thoughts. "We're finally ready."

"Good," Brainiac said. "Commencing data transfer now."

Lines of jade code began to rapidly scroll across all the smaller monitors in the command center, bathing the room in an eerie green light, and a few of the technicians could be heard gasping in awe.

"Amazing," Maya breathed. "He's even faster than the MAGI."

"By several orders of magnitude," Ritsuko agreed, sounding simultaneously impressed and disgruntled at seeing her mother's masterwork so soundly shown up.

"How long until the data transfer is complete?" Gendo asked.

Makoto tapped in a few keystrokes. "At this rate, we'll have sent everything to Brainiac in just under twenty minutes. We'll be finished receiving in…" he trailed off, a frown appearing on his face.

"When, Lieutenant?" Fuyutski asked.

"I don't know, sir," Makoto said. "It seems like something's wrong. Brainiac isn't downloading the information we want."

"What? Then what are we getting?" the Vice Commander demanded.

"Unknown, sir," Makoto said grimly.

Gendo turned and looked sharply at the robot's visage, which was still on the main screen. "What are you doing?" he demanded in a level voice.

"What I was created to do," Brainiac answered simply.

"Lieutenant Ibuki, disconnect the wireless link," Gendo ordered, not taking his eyes off Brainiac's form. "Now."

"Roger!" Maya said, and began to type furiously at her keyboard. However, her eyes widened in surprise a moment later. "Sir, he's managed to override our transfer protocols! We have no control over the data exchange."

"He's connected to the other MAGI across the world through ours!" Aoba said. "We can't stop him!"

"Shut down the I/O system!" Ritsuko commanded.

"Right!" Makoto said as he and Aoba each withdrew a key and placed it into a keyhole at their respective terminals. "Three…two…one!"

They turned the keys, shutting the MAGI off from the outside world. The green lines of code that were scrolling down every available screen in the command center abruptly winked out, leaving only blinking command prompts in their place.

"That was not a wise decision," Brainiac said. "You have only delayed the inevitable."

With that, the image of the robotic life form disappeared from the main screen. A heavy silence fell in the command center.

"Sir!" Aoba said, abruptly breaking the quiet. "We're detecting a large number of small objects launching from Brainiac's ship!"

"He's deploying more of those robots!" Ritsuko exclaimed, going pale. "He must intend to invade the base and reactivate the I/O system with them!"

"Sound the evacuation alarms!" Misato ordered. "Get the city transformed into combat configuration as soon as possible! Fire whatever we have available at that ship of his!"

A chorus of acknowledgements came as the assembled personnel began to rapidly get to work. In moments, the few missile batteries that remained above ground even when Tokyo-3 was in its peacetime formation opened up, sending a hail ordnance streaking toward the placidly hovering ship.

"How much firepower are we sending at him?" Misato asked as the radar tracked the progress of the missiles.

"Enough to level the whole city," Aoba answered quietly.

Seconds later, the missiles impacted, creating an enormous ball of flame over the lake. A cheer went up from the bridge crew as they watched the huge space ship become engulfed in flame.

However, their elation was short lived. Moments later the explosion began to dissipate, revealing the unscathed form of Brainiac's ship. A barrier of milky white light was fading back into invisibility just as they caught sight of it.

"What the hell was that?" Misato demanded. "An AT field?"

"Negative," Aoba said. "It appears to be come kind of energy shield. The MAGI are trying to analyze it now, but the technology is like nothing we've ever seen before."

"Damn. Alert the base's security force. Tell them to arm themselves with the biggest guns they can find, then get ready to repel an invasion," Misato ordered, then she spun on her heel to face the pilots. "I need you three to get down to the cages."

"Roger!" the pilots chorused.

"I _knew_ we couldn't trust that damn robot," Asuka proclaimed with vindictive triumph as the three of them headed out.

* * *

Minutes later, the trio of pilots were all inside their respective Evangelions and ready launch. Misato was taking the opportunity to give them a very quick briefing.

"Your main target is that space ship," Misato said, "but I wouldn't object if you destroyed some of those robots on your way there."

"Take down the space ship," Asuka said, impatient to meet the enemy. "We got it. Now let's go already!"

"Evangelions launch!" the Operations Director shouted.

With a blast of electromagnetic energy, the three giants went rocketing up their respective EVA lifts, reaching the surface moments later. All three of them were armed with a pallet rifle; Misato was hoping that three nearly solid streams of the guns' enormous rounds would overwhelm that space ship's shields.

With a thought, Asuka commanded a small tactical map to pop up on her HUD, showing her the shortest route from her current position to her enemy. "Come on!" she ordered the other pilots, barely checking to make sure that they were following her Unit Two as she took off.

There wasn't a great deal of distance between the point where they'd arrived on the surface and Brainiac's ship, not from an Evangelion's perspective. However, the city wasn't completely evacuated yet, which meant that they had to keep an eye out for people still trying to reach the safety of the shelters.

"Do you hear that?" Asuka after a minute or two of trying to make progress while having to avoid stepping on the moving cars that sped through the streets, the drivers so frantic that they were making Misato look like she deserved an award for safe and orderly conduct behind the wheel.

"No," Shinji answered.

"Yes," Rei replied. "It sounds like some kind of machinery."

Shinji frowned. "I don't hear a…"

He trailed off as what it was that the two girls were hearing suddenly began to come into view. The force of drone robots that Brainiac had launched from his ship started to emerge from behind a skyscraper, and despite herself, Asuka's eyes widened at seeing them. There were so many of them that they looked like an enormous, churning storm cloud. Zooming in on a few of them, Asuka saw that the horde of robots seemed to consist of two types. One was the bulky kind that Brainiac had used in his little demonstration, while the other was humanoid looking, with spindly limbs but scary looking weapons mounted on their forearms. These were flying through the air with the use of some kind of jets attached to their backs.

She heard Shinji curse, and out of the corner of her eye saw Unit One raise its pallet rifle.

"Don't waste the ammo, Third Child," Asuka commanded him. "Let's just plow through these toys and get to our target."

Before either Shinji or Rei could argue against this course of action, Asuka threw Unit Two into motion, sending it right at the metallic cloud. The robots tried to scatter as the crimson colossus approached, but not all of them managed to get out of the way in time. Several of them crashed into Unit Two's armor, and Asuka was vividly reminded of bugs splattering against the windshield of a fast moving car. Some of the big robots opened fire as she passed by, and their weapons felt like dozens of pinpricks against Asuka's skin.

It would've been annoying as hell if she wasn't so focused on reducing Brainiac's ship to a burning wreck.

After a very long few seconds, Unit Two emerged from the cloud, the other two Evangelions on its heels. The army of robots didn't try to follow, and Asuka continued to make her way toward the edge of the lake. It was a much easier trip from that point on, unfortunately; Brainiac's army had slaughtered every human they'd come across, so there were no living civilians to avoid trampling.

The three Evangelions reached the lake just in time to see as Brainiac's ship begin to ascend.

"Schisse!" Asuka cursed as it began to pull away from them with a speed that seemed like it should have been impossible for an object of its size.

She brought her rifle up and depressed the trigger, sending a hail of bullets flying toward the ship. Shinji and Rei joined in, but it was already too late. A few of the explosive shells that the rifles fired crashed up against the ship's energy shields and detonated, but the space vessel had soon gone too high for them to hit. Asuka kept firing for several seconds anyway.

"Cease fire! It's out of range!" Misato barked, a communications window from headquarters appearing on Asuka's HUD.

"We can't just let him go!" Asuka protested.

"We're not planning on it," Misato replied. "But he's already reached the upper atmosphere. The only weapon that can reach him now is the positron rifle. We're sending it to your position now."

_And because _I_ have the highest sync ratio, _I_ get to shoot Brainiac down,_ Asuka thought with relish.

Nearby, one of the city's faux buildings opened up, revealing the pieces of the positron weapon. The experimental sniper rifle NERV had commandeered from the JSSDF was huge even by the standard of EVA weapons, and its long barrel made it impossible for NERV to send it to them in one piece.

But that was okay. Asuka had started learning how to assemble weapons in the field since she was five. Unit Two approached the faux building that contained the gun.

Only to be blown off its feet as a blast of golden light crashed down upon the building, reducing it and the weapon it contained to rubble and melted slag. Unit Two was thrown into the air like the world's largest rag doll by the shockwave from the explosion, and the crimson behemoth didn't come to a stop until it had crashed into another nearby building.

Asuka cursed, rubbing the back of her head and hating that she could still feel her EVA's pain, despite her invulnerability while out of it.

Before she could collect her thoughts, several more beams of destruction rained down like the wrath of an angry god, all of them doubtlessly coming from Brainiac's damned ship. All over the city, great clouds of orange fire and black smoke rose up as dozens of buildings were leveled in the course of a few seconds, and the pilots could feel the ground shaking beneath their Evangelions' feet. A moment later, Asuka saw the countdown timer appear inside her plug, notifying her that Unit Two was now on internal power, even though the umbilical cable was still attached.

"Shit," Asuka swore vehemently.

Misato's visage appeared on Asuka's HUD a second later. "Guys—!"

"Let me guess," Asuka cut off the Operations Director, "that mechanical bastard just destroyed every EVA power station on the surface."

"And all the lifts," Misato added grimly. "We can't even get you back."

"Wonderful," Asuka growled. "So now what?"

"I want you three to engage the robots while you still can," Misato said. "Once you run out of power, just sit tight and let us take care of things."

"You got a plan?" Asuka asked as she and the other pilots began to take their EVA's back in the direction they'd come from.

"We're calling the JSSDF and asking them to use N2 missiles," Misato said, but Asuka could see doubt in her eyes.

The Second Child didn't bother asking why that doubt was there, easily able to come up with several potential reasons for it by herself. Besides, the particulars weren't really relevant to her. She forced Unit Two to put on an extra burst of speed, annoyed—not for the first time since she'd gained her powers—that it couldn't move as quickly as she herself could.

Regardless of this, the three Evangelions had reached the army of robot drones again in moments. The trio of war machines raised their rifles.

"Remember us, bugs?" Asuka asked as they opened fire.

* * *

"How are we doing?" Misato asked a short time later, looking over Makoto's shoulder.

"The EVA's aren't taking any significant damage, but they're not destroying the hostiles fast enough, either," the bespectacled technician answered grimly. "They just weren't designed to fight a large group of small enemies, and they're nearing their operational limit."

"What's the word from the JSSDF?" Misato demanded, abruptly walking away from Makoto.

"They're dragging their feet," Aoba answered. "Saying that the ship is too low for them to risk using N2 warheads."

Misato resisted the urge to curse under her breath. She could just picture the armchair general at the JSSDF base in Tokyo-2, refusing to let the big bombs fly because he was afraid what would happen if it reduced a chunk of Tokyo-3 to ash.

_As if letting Brainiac tear apart the city _and_ the only agency that can stop the Angels is any better,_ Misato thought disgustedly.

Of course, that was the problem. From the perspective of whatever short sighted idiot was refusing to unleash the instant sunrise, it was; better to let the alien level the city than for the blood to be on their own military's hands, even if it meant trading the city's potential destruction for certain destruction.

Suddenly, a section of the main screen, which was split into three separate pictures, turned black. The words "NO SIGNAL" appeared there a moment later. Almost immediately afterwards, the other two sections of the screen followed.

The images had been coming from the three EVA Units; NERV's chief weapons were now out of power and lifeless.

"Inform base security that the attackers should be on us momentarily," Misato said. "Be ready to activate the bakelite suppression systems and to seal off bulkheads when I give the order."

She didn't need to tell everyone that she didn't expect to do more than slow Brainiac's forces down, that they would eventually reach the command center and restart the I/O system, and that there was a very good chance Brainiac would destroy them all when he had gained all the data he desired.

Everyone already knew that it was now time to hope for a miracle.

* * *

Asuka cursed in German as her entry plug went dark around her, even though she'd known her Unit Two would inevitably run out of power. She'd been swearing a lot that day, she realized.

Thanks to her superhuman senses, she was soon aware that the army of combat robots moving away from the three EVA Units and resuming their course to NERV headquarters. Obviously, they hadn't thought the Evangelions, or the pilots inside of them, were worthwhile targets now that the three war machines had run out of power.

Big mistake.

Reaching over, Asuka grabbed hold of a lever located on the side of her command chair and pulled. Instantly, she felt her EVA's entry plug sliding up and out of Unit Two's back. Opening the hatch, the Second Child stood, getting out of the LCL and expelling the substance from her lungs with practiced ease.

Aware that NERV probably had no eyes in this neighborhood after the number Brainiac's army had done to it, Asuka didn't bother with the rope ladder. It was only the fact that she was in her distinctive crimson plug suit that kept her from just flying away. Jumping out, she easily made it to Unit Two's back and then went sliding down the red giant, quickly going from spine to leg to foot to ground.

She didn't have her costume with her, unfortunately, and she wasn't about to go and do the super heroine bit without her mask.

_Time for a quick change,_ she decided and took off down the street in the direction of Misato's apartment, her super speed turning her into a crimson blur as she ran.

* * *

This sequence of events was most unfortunate, Rei Ayanami decided as she sat within her dark entry plug. She had rather been looking forward to a long period of idleness until it came time to initiate Third Impact, though she had not told the Commander as much.

It would give her much needed time to decide what she was to do when the moment of choice came.

A few months back, the Greek goddess Athena had intervened in her life, rudely tearing her away from Tokyo-3 and to the island of Themyscria, home of the Amazons. There, Rei had been informed that the fate of the world would someday be in her hands (something she'd already known), and that they were endowing her with superhuman abilities in order to help her save it.

Neither Athena nor any of the Amazons had ever bothered to ask her if she actually objected to the idea of the world as she knew it ending.

Upon being returned to Tokyo-3, Rei had planned to go straight to the Commander and report the bizarre incident to him, but the goddess Aphrodite had intercepted her on the way and convinced her to postpone the matter of deciding where exactly her loyalties lay, for Shinji's sake.

She still hadn't decided.

Fortunately, the question of whether or not to participate in this battle required no internal debate on her part whatsoever. It would benefit none of the people she cared about if Brainiac was victorious this day.

She pulled the lever to eject her plug from its cavity in Unit Zero's back and climbed out. Unable to fly without the use of the magical boots which she'd been given, Rei unstrung the rope ladder in her plug and began to slide down it toward the ground. As luck would have it, the EVA's had powered down near her apartment building, so it would take her little time to return to her home and change into the armor of Wonder Girl.

The prototype Evangelion and the production model happened to be facing one another, so she and Asuka never did see that the other had ejected.

* * *

It pissed Asuka off that she would have to go out and be Power Girl with LCL still in her hair. She knew from experience that the stuff mercifully didn't congeal or anything when it dried, but it _would_ start to smell.

Unfortunately, there was nothing to be done about it. There was no time to take a shower, only to quickly dry her hair with a towel to keep it from dripping, so she'd just have to make sure she didn't get close enough to anyone for them to smell her.

And to hit Brainiac extra hard for making her go out in such a state.

Securing her wig on her head and putting her red mask on, she quickly checked her appearance in her mirror before opening her bedroom window and flying outside. Shooting up high into the air, she briefly stopped and hovered over the city, using her super vision to check the progress of Brainiac's army.

The horde of robots was entering the Geofront via one of the holes Brainiac had blown in the roof during his brief but destructive bombardment of the city. To her surprise, there was a familiar figure among them, fighting the legion of robots by herself in a brave but hopeless attempt to prevent them from entering the vast underground cavern.

_What the heck is Wonder Girl doing there?_ She thought. _Geeze, everybody knows that in a situation like this, you need to take out the mother ship if you want to win. Hasn't that girl ever watched a sci-fi before?_

Well, if Wonder Girl wanted to waste her time fighting the metal storm, Power Girl wasn't going to waste her own time trying to persuade her to change tactics. She was just fine with having the battle with Brainiac all to herself.

Taking off again, Power Girl flew directly toward Brainiac's ship. The air soon grew thin as she got higher and higher, but she ignored this minor annoyance, able to breath at much greater elevations than a normal human could ever hope to. When she flew high enough that there simply wasn't any more air to be had, she began to hold her breath and barely noticed the strain.

_Only potential problem will be that damned shield,_ she thought as the blue sky above her began to darken into the black star field of outer space. _If I can just get past that thing, this should be no trouble at all._

Hopefully she'd be able to just punch her way in. If that didn't work, she'd have to find a seriously large piece of space junk to throw at it. And if _that_ didn't work, well, she'd figure something out. No way in hell was Brainiac escaping her.

However, as it turned out, there was no need for her to wonder how she'd bypass the shield. As soon as she approached, the sphere of milky light shimmered into visibly…and a small hole opened up in the barrier. Right behind that hole, the door to an airlock opened with a puff of air.

A smirk appeared on Power Girl's face as she told herself that Brainiac had just guaranteed his own defeat, even as a small part of her couldn't help but wonder what made the artificial life form confident enough to practically invite her in.

Dispelling her anxiety, Power Girl flew inside the waiting airlock, and it sealed after her.

* * *

Wonder Girl had known combat before. She had known what it was to stand her ground in the face of an enemy that possessed enough firepower to reduce her EVA to molten slag around her. She had known what it was like to be injured so badly that she was a mere inch from death. She knew what it was like to combat a foe hundreds of times larger than Unit Zero as it tried to crash into the Earth like the sledgehammer of god.

But this was entirely new to her.

Never before had she fought a swarm of machines, and never before had she been so badly outnumbered.

She was glad that she'd thought to take her sword and small round shield, which she normally didn't bring when she was in her guise as Wonder Girl.

With a grunt, she swung the blade of Olympian bronze, easily slicing one of the larger robots in two. It crashed to the ground and promptly exploded, smoke billowing from its ruined form. Several of its comrades turned and fired at her, but she deflected the energy blasts with her shield and her gauntlets, sending the deadly beams of energy bouncing away from her. With so many attacks coming her way, she didn't have the time to worry about trying to direct the deflections, but it hardly mattered. There were so many enemies around her that nearly every bolt of energy that she redirected struck one of them.

Sheathing her sword, Wonder Girl grabbed her lasso and sent it flying with practiced ease. The loop at the end caught one of the larger robots, and Wonder Girl pulled hard, bringing it crashing to the ground, where its all but shattered upon the pavement.

Not releasing the ruined robot from her lasso, Wonder Girl began to swing the magical rope around in a wide arc. The golden lasso, with the broken robot at the end serving as a useful counterweight, created a large circle of destruction around the Amazon, the cord cleanly chopping any of the robots it struck in two and the large piece of scrap metal it held at the end smashing the ones it crashed into. Dozens upon dozens of Brainiac's robots were destroyed in mere seconds.

Eventually, the machines began to realize that they could not hope to approach her at ground level and took to the air, getting away from her twirling lasso. With a practiced flick of her wrist, Wonder Girl had released the very broken robot held in her lasso's loop, and with uncanny speed she coiled up the golden rope and returned it to its place at her hip.

One of the larger robots dared to approach her, the tip of its weapons turret glowing with malevolent red light. Wonder Girl rushed forward, grabbing the weapon just before it could discharge and pointing it into the horde of enemies around her. Bolts of red light spewed forth from the gun and mowed down several more of the robots.

It stopped shooting after only a few seconds, however, and quickly began to struggle. Wonder Girl drew her sword again and stabbed it in one of the circles on its torso; it was the closest thing to an eye that the machine had. Sparks flew, and the robot seemed to convulse for a second before it went still.

"A valiant effort," a familiar voice commented from nearby.

Wonder Girl's head snapped to the side, even as she absentmindedly deflected a bolt of crimson death with one of her gauntlets. One of the more humanoid looking robot's eyes suddenly glowed with green light, unlike the rest of them.

"But a futile effort," the avatar of Brainiac continued. "For all your efforts, you have barely made a dent in my force's numbers. Even as you cut them down, many more move past you and toward their destination as though you were not even here."

"Their numbers are large, but not endless," Wonder Girl said, her soft voice level and defiant.

"They may as well be, so far as you are concerned," Brainiac said. "Surrender to me and you may be spared. I am sure I could find use for your talents."

For the first time since she had joined the battle, Wonder Girl scowled. Wordlessly, she charged forward, the muscles in her pale, lean legs rippling with strength as she ran through the battlefield as if the all the mechanical constructs trying to kill her weren't there.

With a battle cry she had picked up during her training on Themyscria, Wonder Girl jumped over the shattered form of one of the larger robots, toward the machine that currently served as the voice of Brainiac, her sword arm extended.

The thing of metal and wires and gears tried to dodge, but it never had a chance. Wonder Girl's blade plunged into its head, penetrating all the way to the hilt. The robot sparked and its optics went dark.

"An Amazon never surrenders," Wonder Girl said.

* * *

"Come on, Brainiac! Is this the best you've got?" Power Girl demanded as she clubbed one of the drone robots over the head with its own arm, causing its chassis to crumple like an empty soda can under the force of the blow.

Shortly after the AI had so brazenly decided to invite her inside his ship, she had found herself confronted with a number of the same robots he was currently throwing at Tokyo-3, but she'd been having no trouble dispatching them so far.

She was Power Girl after all.

"If you desire a greater challenge, one can be provided for you," the voice of Brainiac responded to her taunt over some kind of intercom system the ship had.

Her super hearing suddenly picked up a loud scurrying sound from a way off, and whatever it was, it was approaching her quickly. She turned to see what new robot was being sent at her.

This new one was different from all the others she had seen so far. It was much larger, barely small enough to maneuver through the corridors without difficulty, despite their great size. And it wasn't in any way humanoid in appearance; its many long, three jointed legs reminded her a spider, and thus the Ninth Angel.

Considering that the Ninth Angel had been perhaps the lamest foe NERV had faced so far, Power Girl was not intimidated.

"Bring it on!" she called out, confident in her superpowers and full of her usual bravado.

The spidery robot rushed forward with incredible speed, its legs making a fantastic noise as they crashed against the metal floor with each step it took. It lashed out with two of its front legs, obviously intending to impale Power Girl with the sharp points.

The girl of steel briefly considered allowing it to try, having no fear that the wicked metal spears could actually hurt her. However, she changed her mind at the last moment and caught the ends of the two metallic legs in her hands, stopping them cold.

"Still not impressed," she declared, squeezing down on the metal and deforming it as though it was putty.

In response, a small panel on the front of the spider-like robot's central body opened, and several long, metal tendrils burst out, looking for all the world like a proboscis on the metal monstrosity, and wrapped themselves around the caped heroine's form with lightning speed. Power Girl's blue eyes widened, and if given one more second, she would have pulled away, tearing the metal cables as she went.

But before she could, tongues of energy crackled from around the metal tendrils, and more than enough electricity to power all three Evangelion Units began to pour from the super advanced combat robot right into Power Girl's frame.

The masked heroine groaned in pain and struggled to break free. Unfortunately, while her muscles had more than enough strength for the task, she found that she couldn't direct them to the task. The massive amount of electricity that was assaulting her system was causing them to spasm wildly.

It was a grim situation for the caped heroine. Even the staggering amount of raw energy that was ravaging her couldn't kill her, but she was at the mercy of Brainiac while the attack continued. The situation might have been the beginning of the end for Power Girl.

Then, the artificial intelligence chose that moment to prove he wasn't _entirely_ without emotion.

"Is this a sufficient challenge for you, Power Girl?" Brainiac mocked her over the intercom.

She bristled under the taunt, and suddenly molten rage sparked within her chest. Before Power Girl even realized what was happening, what she was doing, her eyes had turned a dark red, and beams of orange light began to fly out of them.

Instantly remembering what had happened that day when she'd tried to cook breakfast, Power Girl turned her gaze to the small compartment in the arachnid machine from which the electrified cables had poured out, instantly severing the dangerous weapons.

The spider bot recoiled as though the damage Power Girl had dished out had actually hurt it. However, the mechanical arachnid seemed to rally itself again in a flash, and it was clearly eager to try and attack the girl of steel again, its legs surging forward.

They never had the chance to connect. Power Girl inhaled deeply, filling her lungs to capacity, and then blew as hard as she could. A burst of artic cold bombarded the arachnid robot. At first it did nothing, but in less than a second a coating of frost had formed over its chassis, and its movements quickly began to slow, as a low groaning sound came from its joints.

It was frozen solid before it ever touched her.

Power Girl drew her arm back and unleashed a punch with a wordless, angry shout.

Anything that actually managed to hurt her got _special_ attention from her fists. She was pleased when the frozen robot shattered into thousands of pieces from the force of her blow.

She briefly wondered why she hadn't practiced with or employed her heat vision and super breath much since she'd accidentally discovered them.

_Probably didn't want to create another disaster like the time I set that junkyard on fire,_ she thought.

"Impressive," Brainiac's voice came over the ship's intercom again. "I am glad that you live up to my expectations."

"Your expectations?!"

"Yes," Brainiac replied. "The main reason I journeyed to this world was to meet you."

"You have a funny way of inviting me up here!" Power Girl spat.

"I knew you would come," Brainiac said, just a trace of smugness in his voice. "Your kind has always been exceedingly predictable."

_What the hell does he mean by "my kind"?_ Power Girl wondered, but she shook her head, dismissing the question. She was done with playing games with Brainiac. It was time to find the metal creep and rip out his damn CPU.

She flew down the corridors, and this time she met with no further challenge. Brainiac had either decided that his mechanical minions weren't going to stop her or that he wanted to confront her himself.

Zooming through the halls at nearly the speed of sound, Power Girl quickly found a large chamber at the exact center of the ship. It was nothing short of enormous, with a walkway in the middle that was a dizzyingly great distance up from the floor at the bottom. And all over the place in the room hovered hundreds upon hundreds of spheres of orange light, looking like tiny suns.

Frowning, she slowly strode out onto the walkway and tentatively reached forward to grab one of the spheres, burning with curiosity. However, she hesitated, part of her realizing that touching such strange objects was a very reckless thing to do in so alien a place.

Then she took hold of one of the orbs anyway.

And suddenly she wasn't on the ship anymore. Suddenly she was on a rocky world with two suns, one blue and one green. Amazed, she looked all about her, and she saw a group of bipedal, reptilian aliens walking by, primitive spears held in their four fingered hands. They rushed by in pursuit of some kind of six-legged animal the likes of which she had never seen before, and if they noticed her there, they gave no sign of it.

Then she blinked, and suddenly the scene changed. It was now twilight on this strange world, in more ways than one. The two suns were now low in the sky, but the arid landscape was much brighter than it had been before, because the world was burning.

Bolts of golden destruction were raining down on the surface of the planet, rocking the very ground beneath her feet and penetrating deep enough to allow molten mantle to spew forth, turning the already barren place into an unlivable hell. The natives were running around and screaming, all too aware of their imminent demise and caught in the grip of helpless panic. Looking up, Power Girl saw a very familiar looking space ship looming overhead.

She let go of the sphere she held, and she was abruptly back inside the very ship she'd just seen dealing out death on an alien world.

"Power Girl."

The voice of Brainiac didn't come from any of the ship's speakers this time; she looked up and saw him standing at the opposite end of the room.

"What do you think of my collection?" he asked her.

* * *

This was bad, Misato decided as she broke cover from behind one of the command center's computer terminals long enough to fire four shots at one of the robots storming the place. All four rounds slammed into the robot's chest, but that barely slowed the thing down at all. She was just able to get behind cover again before it retaliated with a blast from the laser weapon mounted on its arm.

Few of the bigger robots had managed to get to anywhere important in the base; they were too large to fit into the hallways. But there was no shortage of the smaller, man-sized ones, and these had somehow managed to mess with the base's security system, disabling NERV's ability to flood the corridors with bakelite and seal the blast doors.

She really should have tried to get away, to escape to some part of the base where the robotic army wasn't interested in and wouldn't go. Her little sidearm did nothing but annoy them. Indeed, the submachine guns that Makoto, Aoba, and even Maya had taken up weren't doing much more. It took anti-tank weapons to stop any of the robots, and base security had had precious few of those in the armory.

Yet despite the futility of the battle, Misato fought on, partially because if NERV was destroyed (and there was a _very_ good chance Brainiac would nuke the whole place from orbit once he'd gotten his precious data, in the tactician's opinion), so too would be any potential chance of humanity exacting its revenge upon the Angels. But also partially because that was just the sort of person she was.

One of the robots approached Makoto's terminal and reached out to turn the key there, to do half of what was necessary to restart the I/O system and give Brainiac what he wanted.

Misato promptly emptied what few shots were left in her clip at the thing. It ignored the impacts completely. She almost threw her gun at it in frustration, but she checked herself before she did so.

Doing such a thing wouldn't help anything, wouldn't even buy them a few more seconds. But she knew something that would, and given the situation, she couldn't see much reason to not do it.

Misato briefly considered telling the bridge crew that it had been an honor serving with them, then changed her mind. That would just be so cliché, and she felt confident that they knew her feelings on the subject.

Breaking cover, she threw herself at the robot's legs just as it reached for the key.

The mechanical man went staggering, and it would have fallen if Makoto's terminal wasn't right there. As it was, the thing was able to throw its arms out and brace itself against the control panel before it went down.

Once it had more or less gotten its balance back, it turned to look down at Misato, then pointed its arm, and the weapon mounted on it, directly at her. She watched as the laser weapon's emitter began to glow with crimson light.

She wondered if death would prove to be true oblivion, or if she'd get to see her family again.

Then she saw a blade of gleaming bronze, moving with such speed that it whistled as it cut through the air. The weapon's deadly edge went straight through the robot's neck without slowing, and the machine's head tumbled down to the floor.

The red light coming from the barrel of the thing's weapon abruptly went out. A moment later, it collapsed, landing right next to Misato, who was still sprawled out on the floor. Behind it was the familiar visage of Wonder Girl, who was floating in mid air off from the second tier of the command center. The Amazon's pale skin glistened with sweat; she had clearly been fighting hard for some time, but she still looked entirely undefeated and able to keep combating the robots.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

For a moment, the Operations Director could only stare up at the Amazon, bug eyed. During the Jet Alone incident, Wonder Girl's well intentioned attempt to help mitigate the disaster had almost killed her.

_Guess we're even now,_ Misato thought and suddenly she had to hold back a chuckle.

"I'm fine," she answered the blue haired super heroine, her voice sounding to her as though it was coming from a great distance away.

"Good," Wonder Girl said. "Please, return to a safer—"

One of the robots tried to sneak up on her from behind, flying silently through the air with its futuristic jets. Misato was just about to say something, warn her rescuer, when Wonder Girl spun around and bashed it with the shield she had strapped to her left forearm, striking it hard enough to severely dent its side. The robot immediately went spinning out of control and then crashed onto the bottom tier of the command center.

"—position. I will hold them off as best I can," Wonder Girl finished, as though nothing had happened.

Misato quickly scurried back behind cover, even as her hands began to load a fresh clip into her pistol, moving almost of their own accord.

And Wonder Girl went to work. As Misato watched, the athletic but svelte superwoman picked up one of the robots—which, despite being the size of a man, were still heavy enough to crack the tiles of the floor when they walked upon them—and lifted it effortlessly above her head. With a soft grunt she hurled it at one of its fellow machines, which was approaching the controls to the I/O system, destroying both of them.

Everyone present knew that the Commander had absolutely no love for the Wonder Girl, but at the moment, nobody could bring themselves to care. The hard pressed defenders released a cheer as the Amazon began to tear into the robots with her sword at incredible speed, cutting them down like they were no more formidable than toy soldiers.

Of course, Misato knew that their situation was not fundamentally changed. For all Wonder Girl's efforts, they were still horribly outnumbered, with the enemy's forces literally within spitting distance of achieving their objective.

But Misato couldn't help but share in the renewed spirit that had gripped the NERV personnel upon the superwoman's arrival.

They might still be on the verge of losing, but they hadn't lost yet.

* * *

"Your collection?" Power Girl echoed the mechanical life form's words, feeling dazed after what she'd just experienced upon touching one of the glowing spheres.

"I have here the collected knowledge of hundreds of worlds," Brainiac said, gesturing at the countless orbs that hovered about the chamber with a sweep of his arms. "And as you can see, I am in the process of collecting the knowledge of this world, as well."

He pointed to a machine that sat in the exact center of the room. There was a small glass chamber within it, and Power Girl could see yet another orb inside it, this one less radiant than all the others.

"But you…you destroyed one of those worlds," Power Girl said, gesturing toward the sphere she had just been holding.

"I have destroyed _all_ of the worlds I gathered information from," Brainiac said. "The fewer who possess the knowledge, the more precious it becomes."

"Mein Gott," Power Girl breathed, looking at all the orbs in room and trying to calculate just how high Brainiac's body count had to be. It was staggering to consider. "You're insane."

"I preserve the memory of hundreds of worlds, in a way preserving the worlds themselves," Brainiac said. "Indeed, I preserve even the memory of your world." He added, one of the spheres obediently flying up to him and into his outstretched hand.

"What?" Power Girl frowned.

Whatever world that one orb contained the knowledge of, it couldn't be her world. She had been born on Earth.

Hadn't she?

"Tell me, Power Girl, are there more of your people out there, teaching others about your world and its people with their mere presence, spreading the precious knowledge? Or are you the last child of Krypton?" Brainiac asked.

Power Girl frowned. "Krypton? What the hell are you talking about?"

Brainiac was silent for a moment, tilting his head slightly downwards. "I see," he said, releasing the orb he held. It flew a good several yards away from him. "So, you do not even know what you are, and therefore can give me no answers. Very well. Now you must die."

"Yeah, fat chance of that, you mechanical—ugh!" Power Girl groaned, as she suddenly felt like a great weight was pressing down upon her.

"You never had any real chance of defeating me within my own vessel," Brainiac said, walking toward her as she struggled to remain on her feet. "I control all the ship's functions, including the artificial gravity. I can increase it by a factor of ten, or a hundred, or a million…or even more."

Power Girl groaned as simply supporting the weight of her own body became a titanic struggle. She grit her teeth and applied every ounce of the incredible strength she had to the task, but she still found herself falling to her knees in moments. They created large dents in the walkway as she went down.

"I won't…lose," Power Girl grunted out, a display of pure stubbornness.

She could barely breath with the immense gravity pressing down on her and had no doubt that her lungs were on the verge of collapse. She could feel it every time her heart managed to beat one more time, struggling mightily to keep pumping blood to the rest of her body under the pressure. Black spots started to dance before her vision.

She wanted to fry Brainiac with her heat vision, but she couldn't lift her head high enough to do so.

"You have already lost," Brainiac informed her. "Greater foes than you have tried to defeat me, and all of them have failed."

"Oh, go to…HELL!" Power Girl shouted.

Muscles with the strength to shatter mountains tensed as, with a Herculean effort, Power Girl managed to quickly get to her feet and lunge forward, out of the zone of ultra-heavy gravity Brainiac had created.

The mechanical being's eyes widened; Power Girl had taken it entirely by surprise. Brainiac made no effort to dodge as her fist crashed into the side of his face, sending pieces of metal, plastic, and glass flying as half his head caved in beneath the force of the blow.

Power Girl give didn't Brainiac so much as a moment to rally. Hovering off the walkway by about a foot so she was level with the robot, she punched him again and again, each blow creating a huge dent in the super advanced machine's body.

"No one is greater than me!" Power Girl screamed, and plunged her fist right into Brainiac's chest. "_No one!_"

With a grunt, she pulled her hand out of the robot, taking a large handful of wires with her. Brainiac staggered, his severely battered metal body creaking. Then he fell face first down on the walkway, now nothing more than a pile of scrap.

Looking down at the ruined robot in satisfaction, Power Girl allowed herself a slow, languid stretch.

"Well, Brainiac, you were a pretty decent opponent, but it looks like I win," the masked girl said smugly.

"This is not over yet, Power Girl." The voice of the machine came from all around her.

"What?!"

Large panels all over the walls began to slide open, and from them poured Brainiac. Dozens upon dozens of perfect copies of the machine she had just destroyed came floating into the vast chamber, surrounding her. Despite herself, Power Girl's blue eyes widened in shock and disbelief.

"I am not a mere organic creature like yourself," one of the many Brainiac robots stated.

"I am, in essence, a sentient software program," another said.

"I am not bound to a single physical body," said a third.

"Therefore, destroying my body will not destroy me, unless it is the last container of my programming," proclaimed a fourth.

"But you _are_ a mere organic creature," a fifth stated.

"Destroying your body _will_ destroy you," a sixth declared.

And with that, they descended upon her like a swarm of metal locusts.

Power Girl immediately took to the air, not wanting to run the risk of getting pinned down there by the group of robots. With a roar, she threw a punch at the first one she got within striking distance of, the force of the blow causing its head to come off, severed wires in its neck sparking.

Another managed to get behind her and was able to put her in a full nelson hold. Power Girl pulled her arms forward, ripping the robot's arms out of their sockets in the process, and then fired a kick at it, sending it flying. It crashed into one of the walls and broke into pieces. Grabbing one of its disconnected arms before the thing could go falling to the floor far below, the caped heroine used it to impale still another Brainiac robot through the chest.

"So I have to destroy every single container of your programming, huh?" she grunted as she punched another robot. "Hmph, could take me a few minutes."

One of the Brainiac robots had had enough. Closing in on Power Girl, he raised his hand, and raised his hand. From an emitter in his palm, a beam of yellow light shone forth over Power Girl.

The girl of steel grunted. Whatever the weapon was, it obviously wasn't a laser or anything. Indeed, it _looked_ more or less like a weird sort of tanning lamp.

But it hurt like hell. It hurt enough to briefly stagger her, even if it couldn't actually injure her.

And that was enough to create the opening that the swarm of Brainiac robots needed.

Instantly, all of them were on her, clustering over her form, utterly surrounding her. The malevolent shell of metal men soon began to release an electrical current, far more powerful than the one the arachnid robot had unleashed, and for the second time that day, Power Girl was introduced to the feeling of being electrocuted.

"Now, Power Girl, you will go the way of Krypton itself," one of the Brainiac robots said. "Once mighty, you will be ultimately irrelevant, and eventually, forgotten."

_We'll see about that,_ Power Girl thought, feeling rage course through her, and though the situation was grim, she wasn't out of ideas yet.

It had occurred to her why Brainiac had held off on using ranged weapons on her until it was obvious he would lose otherwise, instead opting for deadly close range combat. And the swarm of robots had not covered her eyes, despite enveloping her like a very hostile cocoon almost everywhere else.

Deadly orange beams shot forth from her pupils, almost instantly striking several of the glowing orbs that were everywhere in the room. The things immediately exploded under the assault, looking like tiny suns going nova.

Brainiac noticed what she was doing immediately. "No!" all the robots shouted in one voice, aghast at what she was doing to his precious stores of knowledge.

"_Raugh_!" the caped heroine screamed, staggeringly powerful muscles tensing and then releasing one huge burst of power.

The Brainiac robots practically _exploded_ off of her, flying off in all directions. Many of them ended up striking the walls and falling apart from the force of the impact, but many more did not.

_Enough Miss Nice Power Girl,_ she decided, gritting her teeth. _This creep is going down hard, right now!_

Quickly scanning the ship with her X-ray vision, she took off, flying straight downwards toward the floor at top speed.

Brainiac, twelfth level intelligence that he was, immediately realized what the girl of steel intended to do.

"No!" one of the robots exclaimed, getting directly into her path.

Power Girl didn't bother dodging him. Instead, she plowed right into the Brainiac robot without so much as slowing down, her shoulder leaving a great dent where it struck the machine's torso.

The deck plates similarly were unable to impede her, and she tore through one after another, barely even registering the force of the consecutive impacts, let alone being hurt by them. All the while, the hapless Brainiac robot that had so foolishly tried to stop her was kept pinned against her body by the force of acceleration. Power Girl didn't bother riding herself of the machine; she had a use in mind for it.

Finally, they emerged in another room, this one almost as large as the chamber that Brainiac used as his archive room. This place was not filled with glowing data orbs, however, holding only one giant piece of machinery, which was a boxy metal structure that looked perfectly unremarkable except for its great size.

"You know, your reactor really doesn't look very Star Trek," she commented dryly to the Brainiac robot she had taken with her, "especially compared with the rest of this place."

The robot, being very badly damaged by the trip she'd forced it to endure, didn't reply. A few sparks crackled from wires that had spilled out from the cracks in his chassis.

Then Power Girl heard something coming from behind her, and she knew instantly that all the other Brainiac robots had pursued her in a desperate bid to keep her from executing her hastily concocted plan. She had only seconds to do what she'd come to do.

Fortunately, that was plenty.

Flying over the reactor, Power Girl directed a quick blast of her super breath at a thick hatch that was situated atop the thing. Then she unleashed her heat vision upon the frozen metal.

Going from one extreme in temperature to the other was too much even for the exceptionally strong alloy Brainiac had employed for the construction of his ship's reactor to bear. The hatch abruptly shattered into pieces, and blinding white light emerged from inside the machine.

Deciding to forgo any of the expected superhero quips, Power Girl unceremoniously dropped the half destroyed Brainiac robot she'd taken with her into the opening.

The result was instantaneous. Bursts of orange flame immediately began to blossom from the reactor, just as the robots that had pursued her to the room began to emerge from the hole she'd left in the wall, and Power Girl realized that it might be time for her to get off this ship now.

But not before making a quick stop back in Brainiac's archive room.

Turning around and ignoring her robotic enemies completely, Power Girl quickly flew back up, creating a new series of holes in the ship's decks as she went back in the direction she had come from. However, the destruction of the reactor had clearly set off some kind of cascade effect; even as she went, the ship was exploding around her, and she was flying through fire as often as not.

It was going to be a close one.

Finally, she reached the archive room, finding that it was already aflame. The number of orbs present had been dramatically reduced before she'd gotten there, but the one Brainiac had shown her, the one that represented Krypton, a planet he thought she was from, was still there.

She flew forward, intent on taking it, on finally getting some answers to the question of who and what she was. Her fingers reached for it as she drew near.

And then a section of one of the walls exploded, spewing fire and shrapnel all over her. She barely felt the heat, the pieces of jagged metal that struck her didn't hurt at all, and the force of the blast didn't even throw her off course.

But the precious orb was instantly annihilated.

"Schisse!" Power Girl cursed, infuriated.

Several dull booms could suddenly be heard, coming from beneath her. She looked down toward the floor of the huge chamber and saw that the main explosion from the reactor had reached the archive room; a great cloud of flame was rapidly heading upwards.

On an impulse, Power Girl quickly flew over to the machine where Brainiac had been creating Earth's data orb. She ripped out the glass container where the incomplete sphere sat, and then finally began to make her escape.

* * *

Wonder Girl's world had become a hail of deadly laser fire. Her perceptions took in nothing but the robots that were attacking her and the bombardment that she was being hard pressed to fend off, because she could not spare one iota of her attention for anything else. Her arms were blurs even to her quick eyes as she moved as fast as she could to block the energy bolts with her gauntlets and shield.

After she'd arrived on the command center, the battle against the robots had gone fairly well for her…until they'd apparently realized that she was really all that stood between them and their goal.

Then they'd shifted defeating her up in their list of priorities.

The result had been over fifty of the robots attacking her, and only her. And though she was quick, even she could only fend off so many opponents at a time. Eventually the robots had managed to pin her in a corner of the room, away from the critical I/O system controls.

"No!" Wonder Girl heard Major Katsuragi yell, and though she couldn't spare the split second it would take her to look, she knew without doubt that a couple of the robots had moved to turn the keys that would restart the system.

"I am sorry," she whispered, so softly only she herself could hear her words. "It appears that I have failed."

She only wished that she knew who she was apologizing to: Athena, who had made her the Wonder Girl, the Commander, without whom she would not exist, or Shinji, who…was Shinji.

The robots turned the keys…and then suddenly, every Brainiac bot on the command center went dead. They immediately ceased attacking, ceased moving entirely, and slumped limply forward. A few of them actually fell over and landed on the floor with a clatter.

Unable to believe it, Wonder Girl kept her arms up in a defensive position for several seconds, expecting the assault to recommence at any instant.

Silence hung heavily in the room for a long moment.

"What just happened?" Major Katsuragi finally asked, tentatively emerging from behind the cover of one of the command center's many computer terminals.

Aoba cautiously got up, went to his station, and began to press buttons. Moments later, his eyes widened. He pressed a few buttons, and the main screen came to life.

It showed an image of Brainiac ship as it exploded from within. And a small figure in white and red could just be seen flying away from the carnage.

A cheer went up on the command center as they realized that Power Girl had destroyed the mother ship and thwarted Brainiac's attack.

"Wonder Girl."

Those two words from the Commander instantly quelled the celebratory mood in the room like nothing else could have at that moment.

The Amazon turned to look at the Commander, and despite the fact that she could snap the man in half like a twig, she couldn't help but swallow as she looked into his eyes. Gendo Ikari had never looked at her quite like that before.

In that moment, she truly understood for the first time just why everyone at NERV so dreaded and feared the Commander.

"Your assistance is no longer required," Gendo said coldly. "You will consent to being escorted out of the base."

The "or else" wasn't spoken, but everyone heard it anyway.

"Very well," Wonder Girl agreed.

She had to get changed and return to Unit Zero before anyone went to retrieve the pilots anyway.

* * *

Just one day after the "Brainiac Incident" as it was quickly becoming known, life in Tokyo-3 had already returned to something that more or less resembled normal. NERV's position as the only force that could defeat the Angels was once again secure; they had tried to salvage the AT field negation technology from Brainiac's robots, but some kind of fail-safe device had apparently fried the internal components of all the metal soldiers. Every construction crew with a hundred miles of the city had been commissioned to rebuilt the destroyed EVA lifts and power stations, and NERV itself was installing a ton of new computer security devices and programs, since the UN had _not_ been pleased at the way Brainiac had so easily managed to take control of the MAGI.

And Power Girl was on the cover of the _Tokyo Tattler_ again, although this time, she was stuck sharing it with Wonder Girl. It had soon gotten out that the Amazon had fought Brainiac's forces on Earth, while Power Girl had gone up to his ship to do battle with the robot. So stock photos of both of them graced the front of the tabloid, with the words "DREAM TEAM THWARTS ALIEN MENACE" were splashed across the front.

Under ordinary circumstances, Asuka would have been more than a little annoyed at having to share the glory with the Amazon. At the moment, however, she was too distracted to care.

Reaching into her closet, she put the barely read copy of the _Tattler_ on top of the stack she'd collected, then withdrew the orb she'd taken from its hiding place. For what had to be the twentieth time since yesterday, she pressed her palms to the warm surface of the thing.

Brainiac had not managed to download any earthshaking secrets of NERV in the brief time he'd been connected. Indeed, most of what he had downloaded had been very boring minutia or technical information relating to the Evangelions.

However, he'd also managed to get some old records that had apparently been sitting neglected on the MAGI network for over ten years now.

"Personal log of Kyoko Zeppelin Soryu. Date: December 26, 2003." The words scrolled through her mind as she touched the orb. "The nerve synapses in Unit Two proved to be viable last night, meaning we've managed to overcome another hurdle in getting this thing to work. Everybody was celebrating, and somebody managed to produce some very good beer from somewhere. I left as soon as I could, but by the time I got back, Asuka was already asleep, and I'd officially missed Christmas.

"It breaks my heart to be away from my daughter so often, and I don't think Richard is trying very hard to pick up the slack. In truth, I suspect that he might be seeing another woman, but if I don't have the time to be a mother, I certainly don't have time to be a suspicious wife.

"Every night I pray that Asuka won't hate me when she gets older for never being there during these years, but I'd probably deserve it if she did. I'd quit tomorrow if I thought that someone half as qualified would replace me, but the fact is that there's no one else in Germany who can do the job as well as I can. Since my work is essential to the humanity's continued survival, that's not something I can walk away from. I'd endure my daughter's hatred a hundred times over to ensure that she can grow up, safe and happy. End log entry."

With a deep, shuddering breath, Asuka put the data orb back into its hiding place. Then she walked over to her bed and allowed herself to collapse upon it, looking up at the ceiling.

It had taken a damn alien intent on destroying the planet for her to realize this side of her mother even existed; she had never seen this aspect of the woman before. In Asuka's memory, Kyoko Zeppelin Soryu had been first an apparent workaholic and then a mad woman, never a loving mother.

It rocked Asuka's world harder than any of her recent revelations had…and not the least because it made her examine her own life very closely.

_I'm certainly not safe,_ she thought to herself, recalling her mother's wishes for her. _Not being the Second Child, but it's my business what I do with my life, isn't it?_

Of course it was, but that wasn't really the question that was getting to her.

Was she happy?

Under ordinary circumstances, she would had said that of course she was happy. Why shouldn't she be? She was on top of the world! She was the _best_ Evangelion pilot, and the _best_ superwoman. What did she have to be unhappy about?

And yet…and yet…

Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door to the apartment. A moment later, she heard the door slide open and a familiar voice speak.

"Hey, Katsuragi, can I come in?"

Brightening instantly, Asuka quickly got up and rushed out of her room, heading for the front door.

"Kaji!" she exclaimed, instantly attaching herself to his arm, being careful not to bruise the perfect man with her superhuman strength.

"Ah, just the girl I was hoping to see," Kaji said cheerfully.

Asuka felt her heart leap, and she turned to give Misato a triumphant look. The purple haired woman just rolled her eyes.

"Well, if you haven't come here to annoy me, I sure won't argue," the Operations Director grumbled and walked off into the apartment.

Smirking, Kaji looked down at Asuka. "Care to step out onto the veranda with me?" he asked. "There something I need to tell you."

"Of course!" she agreed at once.

She led him to the glass doors that went out to the veranda, and the two of them stepped outside and into the warm afternoon air. With a contented sigh, Asuka leaned her head against Kaji's arm and refused to notice his look of discomfort.

"So what did you want to talk about, Kaji?" she asked sweetly.

"Ah, do you remember how you asked me to investigate into the identity of your biological father?" he asked.

Asuka raised her head, feeling a strange combination of disappointment and excitement. As always, she'd wanted the man of her dreams to profess that he could no longer control his attraction to her, but after her encounter with Brainiac, she was more curious than ever about her origins.

"I managed to track down the name of the doctor who handled your mother's artificial insemination procedure," Kaji said. "I spoke briefly with him, but he wouldn't tell me anything. I think you'd have better luck with him, though, so why don't you give him a call?"

He produced a small slip of paper and handed it to her.

"Dr. Emil Hamilton of STAR Labs Germany," was written on it, along with a phone number.

"Kaji, thank you," Asuka said. "This really means a lot to me."

With that, she reached up and hugged him, an unusually chaste show of affection for her where the long haired was concerned.

"I was pleased to do it, Asuka," he smiled after the hug had ended. "Now, I'm afraid I have to get going. I'd stay longer, but duty calls."

"Of course," Asuka agreed, too preoccupied with her thoughts to protest his speedy departure.

She saw him back to the door to Misato's apartment, then he wished her luck in her efforts to discover who her biological father was. Asuka thanked him, but she felt that she had no need for luck.

She wouldn't bother calling this Dr. Hamilton; NERV probably listened in on her calls, and Hamilton could just hang up on her if she contacted him by telephone. No, as soon as she could find the time, she was going to Germany to see him personally.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** It feels like I've been doing a lot of SOE2 chapters that end right before it all hits the fan, so it was good to write one that's basically action on top of action. I wrote this one quickly, then went back and edited or entirely rewrote parts of it for several days. Brainiac is a really good villain, and I wanted to do my best at doing the guy justice. Hopefully it came out well.

For a while, I seriously considered having Asuka going to confront him before it became clear that Brainiac intended to backstab humanity, and for him to offer her the chance to come with him and see the universe. I decided against this for two reasons. One was that this basically would have turned this chapter into a duplicate of the STAS episode "Stolen Memories." The other was that I think Asuka might well have accepted; with the beginning of the end of Evangelion seemingly right around the corner, I could easily see her trying to latch onto some new grand endeavor in an attempt to still have value in her own eyes.

Anyway, as always, thanks to my readers and reviewers. Now for a little fun.

* * *

Hell is _where_?

"I won't…lose," Power Girl grunted out, a display of pure stubbornness.

She could barely breath with the immense gravity pressing down on her and had no doubt that her lungs were on the verge of collapse. She could feel it every time her heart managed to beat one more time, struggling mightily to keep pumping blood to the rest of her body under the pressure. Black spots started to dance before her vision.

She wanted to fry Brainiac with her heat vision, but she couldn't lift her head high enough to do so.

"You have already lost," Brainiac informed her. "Greater foes than you have tried to defeat me, and all of them have failed."

"Oh, go to…HELL!" Power Girl shouted.

Muscles with the strength to shatter mountains tensed as, with a Herculean effort, Power Girl managed to quickly get to her feet and lunge forward, out of the zone of ultra-heavy gravity Brainiac had created.

Her fist connected with Brainiac's face, and the robot's optics went dead.

* * *

Some period of time later, Brainiac felt his systems rebooting. He sat up slowly as his optics restarted, then quickly ran a self-diagnostic, unable to believe he was where his eyes were telling him he was.

He appeared to be at some twisted version of an abandoned carnival; the place was filled with decaying rides and there were several tattered circus tents about. However, there were also multiple vats of molten metal, which were being tended to by cartoonish looking robots of all shaped and sizes. Other robots were whipping the workers, demanding that they move faster.

"Why, hello!" someone said to him loudly.

Brainiac turned to see a red robot approaching him, a red robot with horns and a tail.

"What is this place?" Brainiac asked. "Who are you?"

"This?!" the red robot asked, a maniacal gleam in his eyes. "This is robot hell, my friend! And I am the Robot Devil! I'm here to make sure that you suffer 'til the end of time, so I hope we can be good friends." The Robot Devil added with a cackle.

"Where is this place?" Brainiac added.

"New Jersey," the Robot Devil answered, then threw his head back and laughed hysterically.

"I am…confused," Brainiac said.

"What?" Robot Devil snapped, then turned and pointed at someone Brainiac couldn't see. "You can't just have your characters announce how they feel! THAT MAKES ME FEEL ANGRY!"


	7. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC Comics or anything associated with it, and I am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Six: **Revelations

Sitting naked inside her test plug, Asuka drummed her fingers against the control interface and did her best not to release the anger and embarrassment she was feeling in the form of a scream.

She could buy that these crazy tests that Akagi wanted to run required them all to be nude to work properly (though she wouldn't have exactly been shocked to discover that someone in NERV was just a pervert, either), but why did they have to run the tests for all three pilots at the same time? And why couldn't they have bothered to put up so much as a couple of screens in the long hallway that separated the end of the glorified car wash the pilots had had to endure and the test plugs themselves?

_We're_ _essential to the continued survival of humanity, and they treat us like cogs in a damn machine,_ Asuka thought disgustedly.

Then she happened to look down at her hand and realized that her drumming fingers had left a series of small impressions in the metal butterfly control grip. With a small wince, she quickly pulled her hand away.

"Commencing the test," Akagi's voice came over the radio.

Immediately afterward, Asuka felt the familiar sensation of her mind connecting to that of a much larger being. This, time, however it was noticeably different from what she was used to.

Which wasn't all the surprising, considering that rather than their usual EVA Units, all three pilots were syncing with the headless dummy bodies that were kept in the Pribnow Box.

"How's it feel?" Akagi asked.

"The right arm's clear, but everything else is fuzzy," Asuka answered, slowly clenching and unclenching her own right hand.

"It feels strange," Ayanami added.

"Yeah, it's… different from normal," Shinji agreed.

Akagi made a small grunt of acknowledgement. "All right, well, we're commencing data recording now," she said. "The test will run for two hours."

Asuka resisted the urge to groan. Taking sync tests was already boring enough, and she wouldn't even have the pleasure of learning how much higher her ratio was than Shinji's at the end of this stupid experiment.

Heaving a sigh, the Second Child sat back in her chair and resigned herself to enduring a very dull 120 minutes.

Which was about when all the alarms started to go off.

"What's happening?!" Asuka demanded, quickly sitting up.

No one answered her. Apparently, everyone in the Pribnow Box's control room was suddenly too busy to worry about keeping the pilots informed. Annoyed, Asuka focused, and the walls of her test plug suddenly became transparent to her, as did the dummy body it was inside of, allowing her to see the inside of the Box. The redhead's eyes widened at what she saw.

Some kind of glowing red stuff was rapidly spreading over the walls of the water-filled chamber like an out-of-control, alien fungus, and it was getting dangerously close to the dummy bodies.

_What the hell is that stuff?_ Asuka wondered, frowning.

Suddenly, the whole Box began to shake, and Asuka turned to look at other dummy bodies. The red pseudo-fungus had gotten to Ayanami's dummy body, and the thing was now smacking the wall with all the force that it could muster. Which, considering that it was an Evangelion body, was quite a lot.

Before Asuka had decided what to do about the situation, small explosives embedded in the arm of Rei's dummy body went off, blasting the offending appendage clean off.

Then a series of jets in the test plugs ignited, and Asuka could feel hers rocketing away. A large door above them opened, and suddenly all three plugs were outside the base and flying through the air in the Geofront. The three metal canisters sailed a very respectable distance from the NERV pyramid, then came to a less-than-gentle landing on the forest floor of the huge underground cavern.

"Great," the redhead grumbled as her plug finally came to a stop. "I'll bet they'll forget us about entirely over there."

She supposed that she could rush back to the apartment at super speed to get clothes, much like the time she had zipped right past Shinji after she'd ruined her clothing while testing the extent of her strength. However, she wasn't terribly keen on the idea of traveling through the Geofront and half of Tokyo-3 in her birthday suit, especially since she'd need to be back in the plug, buck naked again, by the time NERV _did_ come to get the pilots.

Since it was obvious the Evangelions weren't going to see use this time, Asuka wasn't against the idea of Power Girl saving the day, if she was needed, though. The Second Child tilted her head, focusing her super hearing on NERV headquarters.

* * *

"The infection is spreading all over the Pribnow Box!" Aoba reported as he and his fellow bridge technicians typed frantically at their terminals.

"Switch on the vacuum pumps in the surrounding areas," Dr. Akagi ordered as she, Misato, and Maya arrived at the command center. "Hopefully, that thing won't be able to reproduce without any air."

"Yes, ma'am!" Makoto replied, getting to work.

Practically running over to her usual seat, Maya immediately got to work, her graceful fingers becoming a blur as she started typing. Her brown eyes widened almost immediately.

"Dr. Akagi!" she exclaimed. "Something's hacking into the MAGI!"  
"What?!" the bottle blonde barked.

"She's right!" Makoto hissed. "They've already got Level Two access! Damn, they're fast! They're getting past the password blocks like they were nothing!"

"Who the hell can hack the MAGI like that?!" Ritsuko demanded.

"I'm tracing the connection," Aoba said. "I should have it in a few seconds."

"They've breached Level Three security!" Makoto said.

"I've got it!" Aoba said. "The hacker's signal is coming from… the Pribnow Box?!"

"No! It's the Angel!" Ritsuko gasped.

"It's gained Level Four access!" Aoba said.

"Maya!" Akagi said. "Activate the new firewalls!"

"Hai, sempai!" Maya replied, stabbing the buttons on her keyboard so hard that Misato feared she might break them.

There was a long pause, and then…

"We've stopped it!" Makoto exclaimed triumphantly. "The Angel's been locked out of the system!"

Dr. Akagi breathed a sigh of relief, the tension visibly leaving her. "Thank goodness."

"'Thank Brainiac' is more like it," Aoba remarked. "We never could have pulled that off without the new defensive programs we installed after that damn robot tried about the same thing."

"Guess that attack was a blessing in disguise," Akagi said, shaking her head ruefully.

Makoto rolled his eyes. "Real blessing. If not for Power Girl, he would've probably killed us all."

Out in the Geofront, Asuka grinned and leaned back in her seat, getting comfortable.

* * *

It took Dr. Akagi and Technical Division One a full fifteen hours to hack into the Angel from across the firewalls and force it to self-terminate, and that was just the _start_ of the work for NERV's scientists and technicians. The Pribnow Box needed to be rebuilt almost from the ground up, much of the data meant for the dummy system was corrupted and would need to be painstakingly repaired, and the Commanders had naturally demanded a slew of diagnostics on the MAGI.

So, all in all, the sheer amount of work that NERV was facing was quite similar to what the organization confronted after just about every Angel. However, the distribution of labor was slightly different.

Normally, after every battle, the pilots were forced to endure a slew of checkups and tests to ensure that their latest encounter with an Angel hadn't tainted them somehow, and that the strain of linking their minds with EVA hadn't damaged their nervous systems in some manner. This time, though, the pilots were spared.

Which gave Asuka some long awaited free time.

The next morning—which, as luck would have it, happened to be a Sunday— found the Second Child in her bedroom, on the phone with the class rep.

"Sorry, Hikari," Asuka used her shoulder to keep the receiver by her ear as she looked over a map of the outskirts of Berlin. "I'm just too busy to go to the mall today."

"NERV stuff again?" Hikari asked sympathetically.

"Actually, no," Asuka answered. "I've got a sort of…family matter to deal with, you could say."

"A family matter?" Hikari repeated, sounding confused.

"Yeah," Asuka said, "I don't really want to talk about it."

"Oh, all right," Hikari agreed, though she sounded disappointed.

"Maybe we'll do something after school tomorrow," Asuka said. "I have to go now, though."  
"All right, bye," Hikari said.

"Bye," Asuka replied and hung up.

Noting the marked location on her map one more time, Asuka carefully put it back into the rear of her closet, where she'd been keeping it along with her growing collection of copies of the _Tokyo Tattler_.

Then she walked out of her room and into the kitchen, where she found the Third Child making toast.

"Morning, Shinji," she said as she snagged herself a slice. "Where's Misato?"

"NERV," he replied. "She said she'd be gone all day."

"That makes two of us," Asuka commented.

"Huh?"

"I have plans today, Third Child," the redhead replied, rolling her eyes at how slow he could be at times. "I won't be back until dinner, so I guess you've got the apartment all to yourself today."

"Oh, um, okay," Shinji said. "Have fun!"

"Thanks. See ya," Asuka replied cheerfully as she walked out of the apartment, taking a bite from her toast as she went.

"Bye," Shinji said.

The moment Asuka was out the door, she discarded the piece of toast she was carrying, having grown powerfully sick of the stuff in the time she'd been living with Shinji and Misato. She didn't worry about finding something else for breakfast; ever since her powers had started to manifest, she'd been finding that she needed to sleep and eat less and less, though she still could do as much of both as a normal person if she wanted to.

It never occurred to her to even wonder why she'd bothered to spare Shinji's feelings by making it look like she was eating the breakfast he'd prepared.

Heading down to the ground level of the apartment building, the redhead ducked into the electric room (she was becoming so familiar with the dingy little place that she was almost starting to view it as a friend) and quickly changed clothes, donning the visage of Power Girl.

Thus suited up, she snuck up to the roof of the building and took to the air, moving far too quickly for anyone to get a very good look at her as she went.

And then she was free as a bird, no longer having to worry about anyone seeing her coming from the Second Child's home and connecting Power Girl to Asuka Langley Soryu.

She started heading west, en route to Germany. That was quite a trip even for her, but she was looking forward to it. Once she was away from land and over the Sea of Japan, she pushed her flying ability to the limit for the very first time and soon exceeded the speed of sound by several orders of magnitude. The world beneath her became a blur, first of blue-green and then of brown-green as she started to fly over the Eurasian mainland.

The trip forced her to perform a bit of a balancing act. Power Girl knew that if something as small as she was and moving as fast as she was got picked up on radar, whoever detected her would likely think she was a missile. And _that_ would almost certainly end badly for somebody.

On the other hand, if she flew too low over populated areas while traveling at supersonic speeds, she'd leave a trail of destruction in her wake. That definitely _wasn't_ the sort of thing she'd like to be in the news for.

Yet even with these concerns, she still found herself enjoying the sensation of flight. The wind rushing over her was wonderful, and the feeling of such sheer speed was exhilarating, but what really struck her was the silence. And of course, nothing could beat flying for a feeling of pure freedom.

Moving faster than the speed of sound caused her to be encapsulated in a bubble of profound quiet, making her remember how on her first flight, she had thought of the sky as sacred and cathedral-like. All the silence made it very easy to think, which Power Girl wasn't quite sure she was happy about. Her gut churned with anticipation and not a little anxiety as she drew ever closer to the country of her birth.

She wanted to know who she was, and why she had the fantastic powers that allowed her to be Power Girl. She had been curious about the issue ever since she had discovered her superhuman abilities, and her recent confrontation with Brainiac had only increased her desire to know.

Yet part of her feared what she'd discover when she talked to Hamilton. She wasn't sure exactly what she was afraid of—she had no well-defined nightmare scenario about discovering she was some kind of monster or something. However, she had the feeling that she found out was going to be earth-shaking for her, and earth-shaking wasn't always good.

Then, of course, there was the possibility of meeting Hamilton and finding that he knew nothing about why she had superpowers or why Brainiac had seemed to believe she was from some place called Krypton. If he didn't know, then she was fresh out of leads, and she might very well never discover what she was.

Pushing these unpleasant thoughts away, Power Girl looked toward the horizon and focused on not veering off-course, while she applied every bit of super speed she could muster.

* * *

NERV Lieutenant Daisuke Kudo hadn't always liked his job manning the day shift at the base's Strategic Analysis Room. Sure, it had _sounded_ cool when he'd been told about it, but the reality of the position had become clear to him very quickly. For all NERV's power and for all the might of the organization's Evangelions, all their conflicts were tactical in scale. As a result, his job was an exceedingly dull one, which generally saw him sitting alone for hours on end with nothing to do. He'd quickly come to loathe the long, empty hours at his station.

Then he'd had a beer with Shigeru Aoba after work one time and had heard about what the technicians who worked the command center had to endure.

Basically, the vaunted bridge techs often had to work double (or even triple) shifts, deal with the frequently unrealistic demands of the brass (and sometimes the equally unrealistic demands of the workaholic Project-E Chairperson), endure the stress of being a vital (but underappreciated) part of NERV's war efforts, and remain on base during times of crisis (when almost everybody else got to evacuate).

Needless to say, it had made Kudo view his dull post with new eyes, and he had eventually come to like it. He'd bring a book or his Gameboy to work with him to stave off boredom, and then get paid for doing practically nothing. Next to what the "bridge bunnies"—as they were secretly referred to by the base's lower ranking technicians—had to bear, his job looked pretty good.

So when an alarm had gone off in the Strategic Analysis Room, forcing Kudo to contact the Commander and inform him, he hadn't been pleased like he would have been if such an event had happened when he was still new to the job.

Kudo was even less thrilled when the Commander had told him that he was coming to the Strategic Analysis Room personally.

"Report," Gendo said as he walked in a few minutes earlier.

"Sir, our advanced radar system is picking up something moving at truly _incredible _speeds across the continent," the lone technician replied. "It appears that it originated from this city."

Gendo looked up at the room's main screen, which took up fully one wall and always displayed a world map. At the moment, an unmarked red dot was moving toward the western border of China.

"How big is it?" he asked.

"Tiny," Kudo said. "Systems less advanced than ours probably never could've picked it up, even if it wasn't almost constantly flying too low for standard radar to detect. Sir, I don't think any aircraft of that size can move that fast. In fact, I'm not sure any aircraft can move that fast, period."

"Interesting," Gendo said. "So what do you think it is?"

Kudo squirmed uncomfortably in his seat, not enjoying being put on the spot in this manner by the Commander of NERV one bit.

"Well, sir, it seems like the only logical conclusion is that it's…well, a her," he said reluctantly. "One of the city's superwomen, I mean. Wonder Girl or Power Girl."

Gendo nodded. "This has never happened before. So far as we know, they've never gone far from the city in the past."

It didn't sound like a question, but for some reason, Kudo felt the need to respond anyway. "That's correct, sir."

"I want you to keep an eye on this," Gendo said. "As soon as our fast moving UFO comes to a stop, I want you to contact Captain Chiron of Section Two and let him know where she did so. He'll be expecting your call."

"Yes, sir," Kudo said.

Gendo left without another word, and Kudo slumped in his chair and let of a long, loud breath, as though he was exhausted. The prospect of having to speak to Chiron didn't exactly excite him; Kudo had always gotten the impression that the Section Two Chief was trying to figure out how many ways he could murder the tech in under eleven seconds on the rare occasion the two encountered one another in the halls.

And the fact that Wonder Girl had once saved his girlfriend from getting mugged certainly didn't help his conscience. He liked the superwomen, and he knew that the Commander didn't.

Still, he thought with a sigh, orders were orders, and he sure as hell didn't want Gendo Ikari for an enemy.

* * *

Power Girl was over the city of Berlin only a few hours after she had taken off from Tokyo-3, which was a hell of a lot better than any commercial flight she could have caught, in her not so humble opinion.

_No complimentary bag of peanuts, though,_ she thought with a little smirk.

Dropping back to subsonic speeds, the Girl of Steel flew toward her exact destination, idly wondering if the city had always smelled like beer and she just hadn't noticed in the past. Then she shook her head slightly to clear out the errant thought and returned her focus to the task at hand, namely finding Dr. Hamilton. She remembered the map she had consulted earlier perfectly, and it didn't take her long at all to locate the scientist's home.

A quick look with her telescopic vision found Emil Hamilton outside his modest house, heading for his mailbox. Even in casual clothing, the man's appearance screamed "scientist" (or "nerd" if you were feeling less charitable about it). He was wearing big glasses on his face, with a thick, unstylish black frame, and his thin build made it obvious that he'd never been an athlete. His neatly trimmed brown beard had streaks of gray in it.

Despite the way her heart was suddenly pounding, a small smirk formed on Power Girl's face and mischief glinted in her blue eyes. It wouldn't hurt to make a striking first impression, after all.

Power Girl drew closer to him, careful to keep out of his line of sight as she did so. Soon, she was right behind him, hovering a few feet off the ground. Her shadow fell over him, alerting him to the presence of someone nearby, and Hamilton turned. His eyes widened as he looked up at Power Girl.

"Guten Tag, Herr Doktor Hamilton," she greeted, relishing the feel of her native language in her mouth.

His eyes widened at the sight of her. There was shock in them, but also recognition. "Asuka?" he said softly.

For some reason, hearing her name while she was in her Power Girl costume shocked her, as did the realization that this meant Hamilton _must_ know why she had such incredible powers. Without even thinking about it, she let her feet fall back to the ground.

"You know who I am?" she asked softly, the rather cocky tone of voice she'd greeted him with no longer in evidence. "You know _what_ I am?"

"Yes," Hamilton nodded, a smile forming on his face. "I'd be more than happy to tell you everything. Please, come inside."

"All right," Power Girl agreed.

She followed him into his house, which was neat but very blandly decorated inside. All in all, certainly not terrible so far as bachelor pads went, she decided after quickly scanning the ground floor with her X-ray vision and finding no evidence of a wife there.

Hamilton's first order of business upon entering the house was to lower the blinds or close the curtains on all the nearby windows, obviously not wanting any of his neighbors to spot him conversing with one of the famous superwomen in his kitchen.

Her mask, which had never felt quite right on her face to begin with, suddenly seemed nothing short of silly now that she was alone with someone who already knew who she was. She took it off and placed it down on the kitchen table.

"I can't tell you how glad I am that you decided to look me up, Asuka," Hamilton said, his shock at her appearance clearly having faded, replaced by a toothy grin and a level of enthusiasm that bordered on outright giddiness.

"Uh, no problem," Asuka said.

She wasn't quite sure what she'd been expecting to happen when she met Hamilton, but this wasn't it.

"Can I offer you a cup of coffee? I just brewed up a pot for myself," he said, gesturing at the coffee machine that sat on his kitchen counter.

Asuka would have preferred to skip the pleasantries and get right to the reason why she had come, but Hamilton just seemed so damn cheerful and happy to see her that she felt a surprising reluctance to demand he cut to the chase.

"That would be nice," she said.

"Cream and sugar?" he asked as he poured the steaming brown liquid into a pair of mugs.

"One sugar, no cream, please," Asuka replied.

Humming to himself, Hamilton prepared the redhead's drink as she'd requested, then poured cream into his own mug. He brought the drinks over to the kitchen table, gesturing for Asuka to have a seat. She did so, having some trouble adjusting her cape so she wasn't sitting on it. It felt strange to be sitting down to coffee in her costume.

"How are you, Asuka?" he asked, as though this wasn't the first time they'd spoke at all, but merely another in a series of visits. "I imagine that it must've been quite a shock when your powers started to emerge."

"It was," Asuka nodded, recalling every incident when she'd discovered a new one, from the time she'd jumped hundreds of feet into the air to when she'd inadvertently found herself watching Shinji as he changed clothes. "I'm still wondering where all these abilities came from." She added, subtly directing the conversation back to where she wanted it to go.

"Ah, yes, well, that's quite a story," Hamilton said, clearly getting the hint. "Before I begin, do you know how you came to be? The method of your conception, I mean."

Asuka nodded. "Yes. My father…my mother's husband," she corrected herself, "is completely sterile, so my mother decided to become pregnant with donor sperm."

"That's correct. And your mother came to an old friend of hers to actually perform the procedure," Hamilton said with a small, meaningful smile.

Asuka's eyebrows went up. "You knew my mother?"

Hamilton nodded, a wistful smile on his face. "Yes. We were co-workers before she left STAR Labs to work for GEHIRN. We were friends as well," he said. "You look a lot like she did, except the eyes, of course. Kyoko had green eyes."

Asuka nodded. This conversation was veering far from the topic she'd come to discuss, but she couldn't quite bring herself to get the subject back to her superpowers just yet. "Tell me about her," she said instead.

"Ah," Hamilton said, and his eyes went unfocused for a moment as he gazed into the past. "Well, your mother was a wonderful woman. She was one of the most brilliant scientists I'd ever had the privilege to work with, and one of the most kind and caring people I've ever met."

Not long ago, Asuka would have scoffed at this glowing description of Kyoko Zeppelin Soryu, but after having reviewed her mother's journal entries approximately nine thousand times with the data orb Brainiac had made, she was willing to believe there was a side to the woman she hadn't known about.

"But she had a temper, too," Hamilton continued, smiling ruefully.

"Really?" Asuka prompted with a small grin.

"Oh yes," Hamilton said, nodding. "I remember one time when she was still working at STAR. This new administrator had arrived, and he looked at your mother and decided, since she was so attractive, that she _must_ have slept her way into her current position. So he goes over to her and implies that if she wants to retain that position, she'd better sleep with _him_, too."

"And what did she do?" Asuka asked.

"She _exploded_," Hamilton said with a grin, obviously still impressed with the reaction after so many years. "She just started screaming at the man right there in the lab, accusing him point blank of trying to blackmail her into sleeping with him—which is of course what he'd been doing, but not in so many words. The look on his face as she shouted at him in front of everyone was indescribable."

Asuka blinked in amazement. That sounded like exactly the sort of thing _she_ would have done.

Then the redhead laughed. "Good for her," she said. "What happened to the jerk?"

"Kyoko eventually saw him fired, though she had to fight for over a year to make it happen," Hamilton said. "Would've been easier for her to just let it go, but she never was the type to just ignore something that was wrong."

Asuka nodded, deciding that she definitely liked Hamilton. The man was like the kindly uncle she'd never had. No one had ever sat down with her and told her stories about what her mother had once been like over coffee. Her father had always been too busy trying to get her to like that whore he'd started sleeping with well before Kyoko had died, she mused darkly.

And if Asuka got a sense that the man had been infatuated with her mother, so what? She felt certain he'd never actually done anything with her. She could practically hear the unfulfilled longing in his voice, and besides, he was too old to have been involved with Kyoko.

So she let Hamilton go on about her mother for almost an hour, partly because she wanted to know more about the woman and partly because she just didn't have the heart to stop him. However, she kept her eyes on her watch, which was still set to Tokyo-3 time. Knowing that she still had to fly home, Asuka was eventually forced to direct Hamilton back to the whole reason she'd ventured back to Germany.

"Not that this isn't very interesting," she said after he'd finished one anecdote and before he could launch into another, "but I came here to find out why I have all these incredible powers."

"Ah, yes, of course," Hamilton said, looking sheepish. "Well, I suppose I had better start at the beginning."

"That would probably be a good idea," Asuka commented dryly.

"Yes, well, I suppose the series of events that led to you being created with your unique abilities began when a small, unidentified craft crashed into the Black Forest many years ago…" Hamilton began.

He explained to her how a deceased extraterrestrial infant had been discovered when the authorities had managed to find the crashed rocket, and how STAR Labs had gained possession of the child's remains. Then he told her how his studies had begun to reveal the powers the boy might have had if he'd lived, and how his funding had gotten cut off soon after that. By the time Hamilton got to the part about Kyoko coming to STAR for artificial insemination procedures, Asuka had managed to put the pieces together.

"Wait, are you trying to tell me that my biological father was an _alien_?" Asuka asked, shocked.

"Well, yes," Hamilton said, "though I should point out that the Visitor appears to be perfectly human. If he hadn't been found inside a crashed space ship, I doubt anyone would have ever suspected his origins were not of this world. And the creation of a hybrid being such as yourself would've been impossible if there wasn't a shocking level of similarity between the DNA of humans and kryptonians."

"What?" Asuka's eyes widened slightly as she instantly recognized the term that Brainiac had used.

"Kryptonians," Hamilton repeated. "Those are what the Visitor's people were called. Their home world was named Krypton, you see."

"How do you know that?" Asuka asked.

Hamilton grinned. "I have my ways," he said mysteriously, clearly enjoying himself too much. "I'll show you soon, but first, is there anything else you'd like to ask me?"

"Yes," Asuka said. Now that she knew how Hamilton had seen to it she was born with superhuman abilities, she still had one very big question. "_Why_ did you use this…Visitor's DNA to impregnate my mother instead of ordinary human sperm?"

"The world was in bad shape after Second Impact, very bad shape indeed," Hamilton said. "Not that's it's in such good condition now, but back then, Earth was a hell for so many, very few of whom had much hope. We were in desperate need of a hero, and I knew the Visitor could've been that hero if he'd lived. But he didn't, and when STAR cut the funding for research of the Visitor…I decided I needed to take matters into my own hands and see to it that the hero we needed was born."

_You're kidding,_ Asuka thought but somehow couldn't say. Her tongue was kept still by both shock and the incredibly sincere look in Hamilton's eyes.

"I picked Kyoko because I was sure that she would raise any child of hers to be a good person, one who would use her powers for good," Hamilton said.

"I see," was all Asuka could make herself say.

"I have to admit I was extremely dismayed when I heard about the tragedy, and not just because of the loss of an old friend," Hamilton continued, his voice growing soft and sad.

"Why didn't you ever contact me instead of waiting for me to come to you?" Asuka asked, frowning.

"I tried, multiple times," he said with a small sigh. "NERV was not very…accommodating. I kept tabs on you as best I could, hoping for an opportunity to tell you what you are. I thought I'd found it when I heard you were graduating from the University of Berlin. I attended the ceremony, but I never found you."

She remembered that day well. After all the grueling, often intensely difficult work, which had more than once nearly defeated her despite her fierce determination, she had been extremely excited about going to graduation. However, NERV had point blank refused to let her attend the ceremony, and because it coincided with a routine sync test, of all things.

The message had been crystal clear: EVA always, always came first. It was a lesson that NERV had often repeated during her childhood, and she'd already known it well, but having a sync test take priority over her graduation had still hurt.

"I didn't go to the ceremony," Asuka said quietly.

"Ah, well, it might have been for the best. I suppose you wouldn't have believed anything I told you at the time anyway," Hamilton said. "Before you gained your powers, I'm sure you would have thought this story insane."

Asuka forced a small smile. "Probably."

"In any case," Hamilton continued, "I _am_ very glad to see that you've turned out so well, even in spite of the tragic loss of your mother."

"Huh?"

Hamilton smiled. "Do you think it didn't get my attention when 'superwomen' started appearing in Tokyo-3?" he asked. "I figured out that you were probably the one known as Power Girl, and I was overjoyed to see that you were becoming the great hero I'd always hoped you'd be. Like an angel come down from heaven to save us all."

Asuka blinked up at Hamilton, struck dumb, and not by his rather poor choice of words.

This was new to her. Asuka was used to people underestimating her because they thought she was a child. She was used to people thinking she was just some little bitch with a chip on her shoulder who talked big. But Emil Hamilton clearly saw her as far more than even she thought she was.

She didn't know how to deal with that. Her first impulse was to tell him that the whole reason she'd put on a cape to begin with was just because she'd wanted a little recognition, like what Wonder Girl seemed to get in spades. But one look at his eyes made it obvious that telling him as much would crush him. He had this shining (and perhaps naïve) idea about what she was and why she did what she did, and she somehow couldn't bear to shatter it.

"I…thank you," she said eventually.

Hamilton smiled. "There's no need to thank me at all," he said. "Now, if you'll come with me, I have some things I think you'll want to see before you head for home."

"Sure," Asuka agreed, glad, for once, to get away from the subject of how magnificent she supposedly was.

The scientist got up and proceeded to a door that led to the house's basement, with Asuka following. She blinked in surprise at what was down there.

The whole basement appeared to have been converted into some kind of makeshift laboratory. One long table against the far wall held several different machines of similar design, all of which looked like some kind of holographic image generator. On a shelf in a corner sat over two dozen long, clear crystals that each appeared to be somewhere between six inches and a foot in length. An expensive looking microscope sat on a very cheap looking bench at one end of room. A computer sat on a desk that was situated beneath the stairway, along with various other bric-a-brac, including, Asuka noted with surprise, a copy of the _Tokyo Tattler_ with her on the cover. She couldn't imagine what a pain it must have been for Hamilton to have gotten the local Japanese publication shipped all the way to Germany.

"Well, someone had time on their hands," she blurted out.

The evidence that Hamilton had clearly spent an enormous amount of time and energy over the years studying her and her late biological father definitely struck Asuka as more than a tad creepy. The wistful, longing look in his eyes when he'd spoken about her mother began to take on far darker implications than she'd first imagined.

"You must think I'm terribly obsessed," Hamilton said, looking exceptionally embarrassed.

Asuka didn't reply to that. She just looked evenly at Hamilton.

"I've always been rather married to my work," he said with a small sigh. "When I was informed of a chance to study a real extraterrestrial…well, what scientist wouldn't jump at the opportunity? I suppose I became thoroughly enamored with the idea of the Visitor, which was why I used his DNA to help Kyoko create you."

"That doesn't explain all this," Asuka said, gesturing around herself at the room.

"Please try and understand," Hamilton pleaded. "These days, STAR is just a shadow of its former self. There aren't any ambitious projects there any longer, so there isn't really anything for me to do besides continue my studies of the Visitor in secret."

"It looks like you weren't just studying the Visitor," Asuka said in a carefully neutral tone, gesturing toward the copy of the _Tattler_ he had on his computer desk.

Hamilton spread his hands out in a helpless gesture. "You're the Visitor's offspring, Asuka. You became part of those studies," he said. "You're also the only child of a dear friend. And I did have some small part in creating you. So yes, I have always had an interest in your life, but it was never anything…untoward, I swear to you."

Asuka used her super hearing to observe that his heart rate hadn't increased while he was explaining, thus meaning he probably wasn't lying, but she didn't really need to. He was just so damn earnest that she couldn't help but believe him.

_This guy had better never go to Vegas,_ she thought with a trace of amusement as the image of Hamilton as some creepy stalker obsessing about her day and night in his basement faded, and the idea of him as a benevolent quasi-uncle returned. _He_ _probably has no poker face at all._

"All right," she said, and his relief at her acceptance of his explanation was easy to see. "So, what exactly is all this, anyway?"

"Things that came with the Visitor to Earth, which I've been able to sneak out of the storerooms at STAR, along with the equipment I've been using to study it," Hamilton answered. "Of course, I don't have very many resources available to me. Operating independently like this, I can barely grow a cell culture. But I've still been able to learn quite a bit about kryptonian biology."

"So tell me some things I should know about my physiology," Asuka said.

"Your special abilities are fueled by the light of Earth's yellow sun. Apparently, the reason you only recently developed your powers is because it took you that long to absorb enough solar energy to hit 'critical mass' as it were," Hamilton said. "The planet Krypton orbited a red sun, and under it, the kryptonians had no superhuman abilities."

"That makes no sense," Asuka protested. "No species would ever evolve in such a way that they'd have special abilities when _outside_ of their native environment."

Hamilton nodded. "Yes, that's something of a mystery that I've yet to solve. At the moment, my only hypotheses are either that Krypton's sun used to be yellow and the kryptonian people evolved their powers before it changed into a red giant—which is more plausible than it sounds; the kryptonian race was truly ancient. Humanity is barely past the embryonic stages compared to them, let alone our infancy. Or, there was genetic manipulation involved somehow." He shrugged to convey his lack of a hard answer.

"Okay, anyway, go on," Asuka said.

"One thing you should know is that your hybrid DNA will make it virtually impossible for you to become pregnant naturally," Hamilton said. "If you wish to have children later in life, you'll need to seek assistance from a laboratory, just as your mother did."

"I don't want children," Asuka said.

"Oh," Hamilton said. "Well, it's something to keep in mind, in case you change your mind down the road."

He seemed slightly disappointed by the knowledge that she had no desire to have a baby. Asuka couldn't help but wonder if it was because he had been looking forward to seeing future generations from the Soryu family tree—the way a parent might look forward to someday becoming a grandparent—or if he was hoping that she might be the first of a whole line of superheroes.

She decided not to ask. "What else?"

"Well, the kryptonian genes which grant you your superhuman abilities are extremely dominant," Hamilton said, counting off facts on his fingers. "Even though you're half human, you're no less gifted than you'd be if you were fully kryptonian."

Asuka nodded, and despite the whirlwind of emotions rolling through her, she couldn't help but feeling pleased to learn that. "Anything else?"

"Hmm, well, your body generates its own force field, which is what grants you most of your invulnerability," Hamilton said.

"How come I haven't noticed it, then?" Asuka asked.

"It's not a bubble around you or anything like that," Hamilton replied. "It's 'tight' enough that you can't truly feel or observe it by normal means."

"You figured all of this out by growing cultures from what cell samples you were able to steal from the deceased Visitor?" Asuka asked skeptically.

"Heavens, no," Hamilton said, looking bemused by the suggestion. "Most of what I know about Krypton and kryptonians comes from these." He said, going over to the shelf that held all the crystals and picking one up.

"What are those?" Asuka asked.

"These are data crystals, for lack of a better term," Hamilton said. He put the one he was holding back onto the shelf, then went over to his long worktable and picked up another one. "Behold."

The scientist dropped the crystal into a long tube on one of his holographic projector devices. There was a brief flare of light, and then a very blurry hologram of a white haired man in black clothing appeared above the gadget.

"Greetings…son…you…questions…Krypton…only…" the sound quality proved even worse than the picture quality, with bursts of static and white noise blotting out most of the words, and Hamilton quickly plucked the crystal from his device, causing the hologram to wink out.

"You got all that information from recordings like _that_?" Asuka asked incredulously.

Hamilton sighed ruefully. "It was a…time and labor intensive process," he said. "If the Visitor's ship ever had a device to play these recordings on it, it was destroyed when the craft crash landed, so I've been forced to try and cobble together my own player."

"I see," Asuka said, trying to imagine Hamilton watching those recordings over and over again until he got some coherent information out of them, and finding she could do it with surprising ease.

"Ah!" Hamilton snapped his fingers, as though he had suddenly remembered something. He went back to his shelf and grabbed a crystal that had been sitting alone on the top shelf. "This one looks like all the others, but it's actually dramatically different in composition. I've never quite been able to figure out what its purpose is."

A quick scan of the crystal with her X-ray and telescopic vision showed Asuka that the lattices in it were indeed dramatically different from the others Hamilton had down in his basement. Curious, she reached out and took it from the scientist.

The moment she touched it, the crystal recognized her kryptonian DNA and activated. Yellow light flared from the thing, so bright that Hamilton had to look away. Asuka did not avert her gaze, however. The Second Child's eyes were staring into space, and she was no longer looking at anything in Hamilton's basement.

* * *

"Wh-Where am I?" Asuka sputtered in shock, looking around wildly.

The only things familiar to her were herself and the glowing crystal she still had clenched in her fist. Her surroundings were alien to her; she stood in a large room that was unlike any she'd ever seen before. At first she thought that the place had been carved out of ice, but then she realized it wasn't ice she was seeing. The walls, floor, and ceiling of the chamber she stood within were all made from solid crystal. Rather than carving it out of one massive chunk of crystal, it looked like the builder had somehow managed to coax the stuff to grow into its current shape, which should have been impossible.

"Hello, Kal-El."

Asuka turned her head sharply to see the man from Hamilton's holograms striding toward her. Now that he was life-sized, and his image was as clear as she could wish for, Asuka was able to get a good look at him.

He was a tall man with a full head of striking silvery white hair, and he wore flowing black clothes of a cut that Asuka was sure had never been seen on Earth before. The only light patch on his garments was a white symbol on his chest: a five-pointed shield with what looked like the letter "S" inside it.

But his blue eyes were what really struck her. They were _exactly_ like the ones she saw whenever she looked in a mirror. Looking into them totally annihilated any trace of doubt she might have about the veracity of Hamilton's story about her.

"Who are—?"

"I am your father," he cut her off, and Asuka belatedly realized that this was a recorded message she was dealing with. "My name is Jor-El, and I am…I was a scientist on the planet Krypton."

He indicated a window that Asuka was _sure_ hadn't been there a moment ago, and she looked out at the landscape outside. A blood red sun shone down on a world that was strikingly unlike Earth. Purple grass swayed in the breeze, and in the distance she could see a city composed of strangely shaped, almost organic looking buildings. A flock of vaguely bird-like creatures with leathery, blue-gray hides flew through a purple-red sky. In the distance, she could see an ocean, which looked orange beneath the light of the crimson sun. It was one of the strangest, most beautiful sights she'd ever laid eyes upon.

"It is a beautiful world, and an idyllic one," Jor-El said. "Throughout the centuries, the sons and daughters of Krypton have advanced our civilization until war, poverty, famine, and disease became virtually unknown. With the exception of a poisonous few, none on Krypton have any ambitions toward crime or conquest."

He looked out at the landscape himself, and Asuka saw a great sadness in his hauntingly familiar eyes.

"But by now, it is also a dead world, a world you shall never know," Jor-El said. "As I record this, seismic instabilities continue to tear the planet apart from within. By the time you view this recording, Kal-El, Krypton will be but a memory.

"The Science Council refused to believe me when I told them this planet is doomed," Jor-El continued. "The people of Krypton will not evacuate, but I was able to construct a ship to take you to the stars before the end of our world."

He turned back to Asuka, and even though she knew he wasn't really there, the redhead felt rooted to the spot by his intense gaze.

"I chose Earth as your new home because you will be able to blend in with the people there, and because the yellow sun of that world will make you strong," Jor-El said. "With the abilities you will have, it will be within your power to serve as a great, shining light for the people of your new home.

"Live as one of them, Kal-El, to discover where your strength and your power are needed. But always hold in your heart the pride of your special heritage," Jor-El said. "They can be a great people, Kal-El. They wish to be. They only lack the light to show them the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you…my only son."

* * *

Suddenly, Asuka found herself back in Hamilton's basement. The scientist was trying to pry the crystal she held out of her fingers but was having absolutely no success. The redhead barely registered his efforts.

"It's all right," she said. "I'm back."

"Thank goodness!" Hamilton said, heaving a sigh of relief. "I was worried that it might be doing something horrible to you. What happened?"

Asuka was silent for a moment before she answered, looking down at the crystal again. "His name is Kal-El," she said.

"Excuse me?"

"The Visitor," Asuka clarified. "My biological father. His name is Kal-El. His father, the man from your holographic recordings, was Jor-El."  
"So that crystal showed you something?" Hamilton asked, curiosity shining in his eyes. "What?"

"Nothing you haven't already told me, really," Asuka replied, gently returning the unique crystal to its place. "It was just a message Jor-El left for his son."

He clearly wanted to press her for details but seemed to think better of it. "Ah, I see."

"Dr. Hamilton…" she began.

"Please, Asuka, 'Emil' will be just fine," he broke in gently.

"Emil, then," Asuka said. "I should start heading back soon."

"Of course," Hamilton said, "but before you go, there's something I'd like to give you. As a…memento."

He went over to his desk, opened a drawer, and removed a metal box.

"What's that?" Asuka asked.

Hamilton smiled. "This was stuck to the exterior of the rocket when it crashed in the Black Forest," he said. "I believe it may be a piece of Krypton itself. I've dubbed it 'kryptonite.'"

He opened the box, revealing a faintly glowing, green crystal.

Asuka's eyes widened as she felt the light from the thing sweep over her like a toxic miasma. She immediately started to feel dizzy and nauseous in the crystal's presence, and she could actually feel her stupendous strength flowing out of her muscles like water down a drain.

"Ugh!" she groaned, holding her hands up in a warding gesture that did absolutely nothing. "Put it away!"

Hamilton complied instantly, snapping the box closed, and Asuka immediately felt herself starting to recover.

"Are you all right?" he asked worriedly.

"I'm fine now," Asuka said, "but when you had that thing out…it made me feel really weak and sick. And it _hurt_. Nothing's hurt me since my powers developed in earnest, except some of Brainiac's stronger attacks."

Well, Brainiac's stronger attacks and injuries her EVA sustained, but she knew the latter didn't exactly count.

"How bizarre. I never would have expected a piece of Krypton to have a negative effect on you," Hamilton said, putting the box down. "Well, clearly you won't want to take that home with you."

"Yeah, I can do without _that_ thing, thanks," Asuka said dryly.

"Well, fortunately, I have something else you can take with you," Hamilton said, opening another drawer and rooting around in it.

"That's really not necessary, Emil," Asuka said, not wanting to find out what other nasty little surprises he might pull out.

"Oh, no, I insist," Hamilton said, as he continued to search. "You should have some keepsake from the world that gave you your powers. Ah, here it is."

He withdrew two folded up pieces of cloth, one blue and one red.

"What are those?" Asuka asked.

"These are blankets that were found in the Visitor's ship," Hamilton answered. "They're very warm despite being made of such thin material. Not to mention that they're stronger than Kevlar, completely heat resistant, and fireproof."

Asuka took the blue blanket, finding it very soft to the touch, and unfurled it. It was surprisingly large for a baby blanket, and it was completely blue, save for the symbol in the center. It was the very same one Jor-El had worn, except the border and the "S" were red, while the rest was a bright yellow.

"Are you sure you want me to have these?" Asuka asked. "If this stuff is really as strong as you say, you could make a fortune if you could figure out how to make more. Maybe buy STAR and get your research back into high gear."

Hamilton chuckled. "Believe me, I've tried, but I believe it's quite impossible," he said. "Besides, next to everything else I have to study, the blankets really aren't all that fascinating. Take them, I insist."

"Thank you," Asuka said, refolding the blue blanket and then accepting the red from Hamilton as well. "Now, I have really got to get back. They'll miss me if I'm not in Tokyo-3 in a couple of hours."

"Of course," Hamilton said. "Let me walk you to the door."

Asuka nodded and silently followed him upstairs. Once back in his kitchen, she replaced her mask, again fully donning the visage of Power Girl.

"I don't know when we'll get the opportunity to speak again," she said. "It wouldn't be smart to start talking over the phone; NERV likes to poke its nose into my business way too much. So let me just thank you right now for telling me about all this, and about my mother."

"Please, think nothing of it, Asuka," Hamilton said. "And if you ever need anything that I can provide, please don't hesitate to come back here."

Power Girl paused, then she gave into the impulse to hug the man, being careful not to accidentally hurt him. Hamilton hesitated for a moment and then draped his arms around her.

"Now I really do have to go," Power Girl said, pulling back. "Good-bye, Emil."

"Good-bye, Asuka," he replied.

Opening the door, she took to the skies, actually looking forward to the long, quiet flight back. She had been correct in thinking that her trip to Germany would be earth-shaking, and she needed the time to think.

* * *

Near the center of Berlin, about as far as one could get from Emil Hamilton's little home without leaving the German capital, sat a very large and opulent mansion. And in the basement of that opulent mansion was a high tech command center, where an aged cyborg and a pair of technicians watched the large view screen light up as something very small and very fast broke the sound barrier.

"She finally left," Keel observed. "Signal the commando team to move in."

"Yes, sir," one of the technicians replied.

It would have annoyed but not much surprised Keel to find that Gendo was currently giving similar orders to his own black ops team.

* * *

When Hamilton heard someone walking around upstairs, he suspected that Asuka might have come back for some reason, possibly a question she'd forgotten to ask him. He nearly called out to her.

Then there was a loud crack as someone kicked in the door to his basement, splintering the wood, and he knew that it wasn't Asuka.

Panicking, the scientist grabbed the lead box containing the sample of kryptonite, intent on getting rid of the thing, but he soon discovered there was no place for him to do that. The only way into or out of his basement was the door that had just been kicked in, and he didn't have the means to soundly destroy the green crystal. Not in the handful of seconds he had available to him, at least.

Unable to dispose of the kryptonite, he quickly decided to do the next best thing, which was to hide it. He rushed over to his shelf, intent on shoving the lead box behind it.

But he was too late. The men who had invaded his home arrived in the basement before he could finish the task, and saw him stashing it into its impromptu hidey-hole.

"Hands up!" one of the men yelled, pointing a weapon at him.

Hamilton whirled and found himself faced by a squad of heavily armed and armored men. They wore black from head to toe, making it very easy for him to spot the red fig leaf emblem they each had displayed on their right breast.

"NERV," he whispered.

"I said hands up!" the leader of the men roared. "What were you trying to hide back there?!"

"Nothing!" Hamilton said as he raised his hands above his head.

Obviously not believing him for a moment, the squad leader gestured toward the scientist's bookshelf with a quick jerk of his head. One of the other men walked over to it and quickly found the box and opened it. He frowned in confusion at what he saw.

"Some kind of crystal," he said.

"Well, whatever it is, the doc here tried to hide it," the squad leader said. "So we're taking it with us."

"It's really nothing," Hamilton said. "It just has…sentimental value."

The squad leader snorted. "Right. Anything else around here with 'sentimental value'?"

The walkie-talkie strapped to the squad leader's belt crackled to life before Hamilton could answer. "Alpha One, this is Lookout, do you read, Alpha One?"

The squad leader plucked the walkie-talkie from his belt and pressed the talk button. "I copy, Lookout. Go ahead."

"There's another team approaching the house, fast," the other man replied. "They're heavily armed, and I'm not sure we can take 'em."

The squad leader cursed. "How long?" he asked.

"You've got three minutes to get out of there. Five tops."

"Understood, Alpha One out," the squad leader said, then turned to his men. "We're getting out of here. Bag and gag the doctor, now."

"Hey, wait—!" Hamilton protested, but he was silenced as one of the men placed a piece of duct tape over his lips and then pulled a black bag over his head. A moment later, his wrists and ankles were bound.

"Let's go," the squad leader said once they were done.

As he was bodily carried out of his basement, Hamilton took solace from the fact that nothing in his lab could betray the true identity of Power Girl.

* * *

Minutes later, the commando team sent by SEELE arrived at Hamilton's house, finding the place empty. If the NERV operatives hadn't broken their way into the house and then the basement, they might have thought their target had just gone out.

The leader of this new team cursed and took out his phone. He dialed, and in a moment, a familiar, aged voice responded. "Hello?"

"We're at Hamilton's house," the man said without preamble, "but it looks like someone beat us here. He's gone, and there are signs of forced entry."

"Ikari," Keel hissed under his breath before addressing the team leader. "Get his computers and any notes he might have made and report back."

"Yes, sir," the team leader said.

* * *

Already far away from Germany by this point and blissfully oblivious to what was going on in the land of her birth, Power Girl flew through the sky on a course for Tokyo-3, her thoughts churning about in her mind.

Letting Hamilton praise her for being some big damn hero had made her feel like a fraud, which wasn't something she was used to. She would have told him the truth, but she'd found that she didn't want to let him down; the man clearly cared more for her far more than Richard Langley ever had. Her so-called father had told her he wouldn't attend her college graduation well in advance of her discovery that she wouldn't, either.

Then there was the message from Jor-El. It had been meant for his son, not for her—but that son was _her_ biological father, which made the kryptonian scientist her grandfather. She had apparently inherited the message (it had played for her, after all), but had she inherited the mission Jor-El had given his son as well? To be, basically, the very same great hero that Emil Hamilton thought she already was?

That was a problem if she had, because that wasn't her. Even she couldn't make herself believe that was her, not when she knew damn well that she made a habit of throwing on a cape because she liked seeing her picture in the _Tokyo Tattler._ It made her extremely guilty to think about it now, but the fact was that many times in the past, she'd known about various small crises and crimes she could have addressed and had taken a pass on them, because she knew it wouldn't get her any media attention.

If you needed an elite Evangelion pilot who was stunningly beautiful and extremely brilliant, she would have _no_ problem saying that she was your girl. But an "angel come down from heaven to save us all"? A "great, shining light"? No, that was too much.

It made her feel ashamed of herself, like she had completely squandered all her gifts where Kal-El wouldn't have if he'd survived, and like she had let everyone down.

This, she knew, was perhaps a little absurd. _So what_ if she wasn't really living up to the image some old scientist who'd decided to secretly use alien DNA to knock up her mother held of her? _So what_ if she wasn't what her alien grandfather had wanted his dead son to be? Hell, it was entirely possible that Kal-El never would have become a hero if he'd lived. She might have already done more good than he ever would have!

And yet for all that, she couldn't help but feel compelled to live up to the expectations she only now learned at least one person had of her, that she really should try and be that great hero. She was, after all, the great Asuka Langley Soryu.

"But is that what I even want to be?" she muttered to herself as she dropped to subsonic speeds upon her approach to Tokyo-3.

She was still no closer to an answer when she returned to the apartment building and changed back into her regular clothes.

"Hello, Asuka," Shinji greeted her as she walked into the apartment. "Did you enjoy your day off?"

"It was…interesting," Asuka answered truthfully. "So, what's for dinner?"

"Uh, just stir fry," Shinji answered.

"That's fine," Asuka replied absently.

The Second Child was quiet all throughout the meal, missing the concerned looks that Shinji and Misato threw her way as she continued to turn her new conundrum over and over within her mind. As soon as she could, she excused herself and slipped away to her room, where she plugged in her school laptop and booted it up.

It had occurred to her as she was flying back to Japan that she didn't really know what most people thought about Power Girl. She knew what the _Tokyo Tattler _thought, she knew what Shinji thought, and she knew that his stooge friends, along with most of the male portion of her school's student body, drooled over her pictures. But the opinions of everyone else were a mystery to her.

Getting onto the internet, Asuka typed the name of her alter ego into a search engine and started going through the list of results.

The first several hits were fan sites made by enamored techno-nerds who came off as more than obsessive enough to be creepy rather than flattering. Another website was selling action figures of both Power Girl and Wonder Girl, which, given her dislike for dolls, Asuka found more than a little disturbing. She was nearly ready to give up when she happened upon an online message board with a forum dedicated to the topic of Power Girl. One of the main threads in that forum featured people she'd saved discussing their experiences. She stared intently at the screen as she read one.

_"I used to be an all around skeptic when it came to Tokyo-3's superwomen. I thought that the media exaggerated their feats like crazy, and I wasn't even sure they were on the up and up._

_"Then Power Girl saved my life. I had just changed the brakes on my car, and it turned out that I'd screwed it up. My car was totally out of control, I was about to go into a river, and I was sure I was going to die. Then she swooped in, picked my car up like it was a toy, and put it back on the street. She asked me if I was okay and then flew off, probably to go help someone else._

_"The experience was scary as hell, but I'm actually glad it happened. Thanks to my little brush with death, I realized how important it was to seize the day, and I finally worked up the courage to tell my girlfriend I love her. Now the wedding's scheduled for next spring._

_"How wild is that? An experience that should have killed me instead actually improved my life. And it's all because of Power Girl. She's like a miracle in a red cape. I wish I knew what her given name was, because my future wife and I would like to name our first daughter after her."_

Asuka reread that last sentence three times before she leaned back and diverted her gaze from the screen.

"Mein Gott," she said softly to herself. It was all she could say at the moment.

She scrolled down the page, wondering if all her "reviews" were like that and soon found another such story.

_"Power Girl saved me, but if you read about my little confrontation with her, it probably said she stopped me. Doesn't matter. In this case, they're the same thing._

_"I should probably explain that, huh? I'm posting right now from inside the rec. room of a mental hospital. You see, a while ago, I just went totally nuts. I was so crazy paranoid that I was seeing these mysterious, bodysnatching enemies that I called 'Them' everywhere. I managed to get myself a gun and decided to take as many of 'Them' out as I could._

_"Long story short: Power Girl showed up, stopped me from hurting anyone, and just generally kicked my ass. I know it sounds corny, but she saved me from myself as much as she saved the people I was planning to shoot from me._

_"Right now, the docs have almost got my meds figured out, my head's a lot clearer, and it looks like I'll get out of here and back in the world eventually. If she hadn't shown up…I don't even wanna think about it. It's not the idea of being behind bars forever that freaks me out so much (though I don't exactly like it), but that everyday when I looked into the mirror I'd be seeing a killer there. I don't think I could live with that."_

Asuka spent several more minutes reading various other accounts of people she'd saved, and she found just about all of them to have that same glowing opinion of her. One guy echoed Hamilton's words almost exactly by describing her as a "real" angel from heaven.

There were still more she hadn't read yet when she turned off her laptop, but the redhead was starting to feel almost dizzy.

It made her guilty to realize it, but she'd never really thought all that much about the people she'd saved. In her mind, they just sort of… stopped existing after she'd saved them and had flown away. The payoff for her was getting her picture in the paper, not the satisfaction of having saved people.

Sighing, she ran a hand through her hair, wondering what the hell she'd created. Being Power Girl was just a sort of hobby for her, it didn't make her a savior, let alone some selfless angel. Why didn't people realize that?

A small bitter laugh escaped her. She still wasn't getting the recognition she felt she deserved as an EVA pilot, but as Power Girl, the level of admiration she got was enough to make even _her_ uncomfortable and ashamed of herself.

"Gott," she groaned, rubbing her eyes, "what the hell am I gonna do? What the hell do I _want_ to do?"

And then she realized the worst thing of all. She really, truly had no damn idea.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **No action here (though I can promise right now that next chapter will have plenty of it), but plenty of important events nevertheless. I hope it didn't feel like a mere info dump. I hope nobody minds that I basically skipped this Angel. The fact is, I can't make the fight against number 11 interesting and dramatic an infinite number of times. Anyway, if you don't like excessive authorial ramblings, skip down to the omakes now. This note's going to be a long one.

First up is the matter of what's going on with Asuka. A lot of Eva fic authors who decide to develop Asuka's character start the process off by having someone give her a swift smack to the back of the head, either figuratively or literally. I can certainly understand the desire to do that, because goodness knows Asuka asked for it more than once, but I never thought it would have any sort of positive effect. It always seemed to me that Asuka would react to that sort of thing the same way Shinji would, which would be to hide further behind her emotional walls and employ her defensive mechanism. Which, in her case, is bitchiness. What happened here would, at the very least, catch her off guard but wouldn't get that reaction.

On the issue of Hamilton, when I was first writing this chapter, I realized that he was coming off as this creepy old guy who spends most of his time in his basement, obsessing over a teenage girl. So I had Asuka confront him about that to give the guy a chance to explain why he is not a creepy old guy. I'm sure he still comes off as a little odd, at least, but I needed him to be able to furnish Asuka with answers to her questions. And in order for him to be able to do that, he had to have been studying the deceased Kal-El and his stuff this whole time.

Now, on what Asuka saw when she grabbed that crystal. If you watched the old Superman movies that were directed by Richard Donner, you no doubt recognized a lot of that. Marlon Brando in those movies was just the definitive Jor-El for me (in fact, while I felt that _Superman Returns_ tried way too damn hard to be one of the Donner movies, I really did like how they used a little technical wizardry to have Brando still be Jor-El), and I confess part of his speech was cribbed right from the movie. I did try to mix a bit of STAS in my description of Krypton itself, though, because I agree with Bruce Timm's idea that it should be a live, vibrant world; it's a lot easier to be sad about the destruction of a lush world teeming with life than the destruction of the frozen wasteland seen in the Donner films.

On a technical issue, my beta reader pointed out that, having been trained by the military for years, Asuka should probably know enough about radar to have the sense to try and evade it. But I needed Gendo and Keel to be able to track her. So, knowing little more than the basics principles behind this technology, I decided to keep the explanation vague and say that both of them had access to some super "advanced" radar systems.

Wow, I'm long winded. Anyway, thanks as always to my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta readers as well.

Now for some fun!

* * *

Omakes

Asuka and the dolls, part one

The first several hits were fan sites made by enamored techno-nerds who came off as more than obsessive enough to be creepy rather than flattering. Another website was selling action figures of both Power Girl and Wonder Girl, which caused the Second Child to immediately put what she was doing on the back burner.

Going to her closet, she again donned her Power Girl costume and then flew out of her window, now a superwoman on a mission.

* * *

_The Corporate Headquarters of HasTel (which is totally not a fusion of Hasbro and Mattel)_

In the highest room of the tall skyscraper sat a well dressed executive and one of his underlings. The latter was currently gesturing the a large line graph which he had hung up on the far wall.

"As you can see, Mr. Matsashiro, the sales projections of the 'superwomen' dolls continues to be extremely strong," the subordinate said, pointing at the graph. "Girls are buying these things almost faster than we can produce them."

"Excellent," Matsashiro said. "Now, I—"

He was rudely cut off as the large window in his office shattered, as a girl in a white leotard and red cape crashed straight through, undamaged by any of the pieces of broken glass.

The assistant turned and ran from the room. Power Girl let him go; she wanted to speak to the boss.

"What's your name?" she asked the man.

"Ma-Matsashiro," the executive stammered.

"Well, Matsashiro, did you _really_ think it was a good idea to make a buck off of the superwomen, considering what one of us could _do_ to you?" Power Girl asked dangerously.

"I…I'm sorry," the businessman stammered. "Please don't kill me."

"I'm not going to kill you, stupid," Power Girl said. "I just want my cut."

"Your cut?"

"Of the profits!" Power Girl exclaimed. "If you're going to be making and selling these things, then I want 50 percent of the profits from every doll of me sold!"

"Fi-fifty percent!" Matsashiro gasped, going pale. "But—!"

Power Girl gave him a glare, and he immediately shut up.

"I'll be back in a week to pick up my first royalty check," the Girl of Steel said sweetly. "Just make it out to 'cash.'"

Matsashiro nodded meekly.

"Oh, and one more thing!" Power Girl exclaimed, grabbing a couple of the superwomen action figures that happened to be standing on the executive's desk and waving them around. "My breasts are way bigger than Wonder Girl's! These things had better reflect that soon!"

"Y-Yes, Power Girl," he said. "I'll have them change the designs immediately!"

"See that you do," the Girl of Steel said with a sniff, then she flew off, both dolls still clutched in her hands.

* * *

Asuka and the dolls, part two

Returning once again to her bedroom, the redhead changed out of her costume for the last time that day, not realizing that she'd taken the dolls with her until she spotted them on her bed, where she'd carelessly dropped them.

"Stupid things," she muttered to herself, opening the drawer of his desk and carelessly tossing them inside.

Going back to her computer, Asuka resumed her surfing of the web, but she couldn't keep her mind focused on her computer. Her eyes kept dropped down to the draw where she'd stuffed the dolls.

Multiple times, she shook her head to try and clear the unwanted idea that kept popping up into it, but it seemed to be of no use. The errant notion just wouldn't leave her mind, and she reluctantly came to the conclusion that the only way to get rid of it was to give into it.

With a sigh, Asuka removed the dolls from her drawer. She also withdrew a green, plastic dinosaur and a black haired Ken doll, the origins of which I do not have to explain because this is an omake. Moving her laptop out of the way, she set the toys down on her desk.

Holding the Ken doll, Asuka moved it across the top of her desk in a rough approximation of walking.

"I'm Shinji, and I'm having a good day," she proclaimed for the doll, deepening her voice slightly to sound more like a boy. "But wait! It is Godzilla! Oh no!"

She moved the green dinosaur next to "Shinji" and did some roaring sounds. The plastic Shinji cowered in terror.

"Oh no! Who will save me!?" Asuka asked in the plastic Shinji voice.

"I, Wonder Girl, will save you!" she answered the plastic Shinji in a high pitched, rather goofy sounding voice, moving the blue haired doll next to him.

She struck the dinosaur and the Wonder Girl doll together several times in a very crude approximation of battle, making little grunting sounds to add to the drama.

Then the battle stopped as the plastic Wonder Girl suddenly realized something. " Oh no!" she exclaimed.

"What?" plastic Shinji asked.

"I just remembered that I suck!" plastic Wonder Girl exclaimed.

Then "Godzilla" bit down on her torso, shaking her about before discarding her contemptuously.

"Oh no!" plastic Shinji wailed.

"Fear not!" plastic Power Girl said, flying onto the scene. "I'll save you!"

"Yes! We're saved!" plastic Shinji exclaimed.

Asuka's smaller counterpart gave Godzilla one smack and knocked him off the desktop.

"Yay!" plastic Shinji said. "You saved us, Power Girl!"

"Saved us like I never could have!" plastic Wonder Girl agreed. "You're so much cooler than I am!"

"And you look _so_ much more beautiful and adult than Wonder Girl!" plastic Shinji added.

"And—"

Her game was rudely cut off as the door to her room slid open, revealing the flesh and blood Shinji, who was coming to check up on her. He had been concerned because Asuka had been so unusually quiet that evening.

The second she realized someone was coming in, the Second Child threw herself over the dolls in an attempt to conceal them.

"What did you see?!" she barked.

"Nothing!" Shinji exclaimed. "I didn't see you playing with your dolls!"

"Good!" Asuka snapped. "Now get out of here before I rip your legs off!"

"Right!" Shinji agreed, quickly departing and closing the door again.

Asuka breathed a sigh of relief as she returned to a normal sitting position. "Now that was close one."


	8. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC Comics or anything associated with it, and I am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Seven: **Future Shock

_The Planet Apokolips_

_The Year 3015 (Earth reckoning)_

If any person on any world in any galaxy was ever afforded a good look at the planet Apokolips and lived to tell the tale, they would have described it as a Hell.

There was absolutely nothing pretty on Apokolips; there was no plant life visible anywhere, just twisted cities that seemed to be composed entirely of dull, dark metal. Nor were there any bodies of glistening water to be found. Instead, enormous tongues of flame leapt out of the fire pits which dotted the planet, reaching so high into the air that they lapped at the top of the planet's ozone layer. And there was no art, save for the edifices made in tribute to the world's small ruling class, these being nothing short of grotesque.

And unfortunately for the universe, appearances were anything but deceiving when it came to this world. Though the power of Apokolips had waned in recent centuries, the world had been a source of evil and a blight on all existence since time immemorial.

For Apokolips was home to a race of immortal beings of immense might. They referred to themselves as the 'New Gods', and no being with enough power to prove that the moniker was inaccurate had yet to appear.

And at the moment, two of them were plotting.

"Is it finished yet, Kanto?" one of them demanded.

He was an enormous man, his bushy black hair and beard coming together to make him look as though he had the mane of a lion. Clad in a green garment that allowed for maximum mobility, he held an immense stone club in one hand. The huge man looked like nothing so much as a giant brute, but in truth, he was of royal blood, a prince of hell.

The man he spoke to, Kanto, was significantly smaller in stature, but no more easily forgotten. He had a handsome, bearded face, and, had he worn a suit, he might easily have passed for a successful businessman on Earth. Yet instead of anything so mundane, he wore clothing that would not have looked too out of place in a Shakespearean play or Renaissance-era Italy, with a sunburst emblem on the front. Despite his primitive clothing, he was bent over a device that would have made many a brilliant scientist just scratch his head and admit confusion.

"Patience, Kalibak," Kanto said. "I can't rush this without risking disaster. Making a machine to increase the functions of a Motherbox is no simple task."

Kalibak grunted in reluctant agreement. "I cannot wait until it is done, Kanto," he said, clenching one of his large fists. "Then I can at last have my revenge."

"And prevent the disaster that befell Apokolips all that time ago from ever happening," Kanto added pointedly.

"One ensures the other," Kalibak growled, displeased at Kanto's splitting of hairs. "Now get back to work."

* * *

_The Planet Earth_

_The Year 2015_

"Kaji, have you ever had anyone who looked up to you?" Asuka asked. "I mean, really, _really_ looked up to you?"

Coming from the person that it did, this question almost caused the long haired man to laugh at the irony. However, he knew Asuka well enough to realize that this would not be well received, so he managed to restrain himself.

"Oh, I suppose," he replied instead, doing his best to keep his amusement out of his voice.

The two of them were walking through the commercial district of Tokyo-3, Kaji having agreed to take Asuka shopping. So far, the spy had been surprised by her behavior; she was being unusually quiet and, though she had latched onto his arm the moment she saw him, her usual advances on him were conspicuously absent.

"How did you deal with it?" she asked him

"Why do you ask, Asuka?" he replied. "I hope you don't mind my saying so, but I never got the impression that you wouldn't know what to do with people praising you."

She gave him a look, and Kaji immediately knew that if he was anyone else, she probably would have snapped at him for the comment. He couldn't help but grin, and Asuka, perhaps despite herself, grinned back.

The redheaded EVA pilot quickly sobered, however. "I… met someone recently," she said. "Someone who just couldn't stop going on about how great I was. As an Evangelion pilot, of course. It was a little overwhelming. They thought I was better than I think I am."

Kaji arched an eyebrow, and at that moment he became completely sure that there was something Asuka wasn't telling him, instead of merely suspecting as much. He couldn't imagine that the Second Child could see any amount of praise for her piloting ability as more than what she deserved.

Part of him was tempted to press her to reveal what she was holding back, but the rest of him was very reluctant to try that. He knew there was a good chance Asuka would clam up if he did, and that there weren't many people she felt she could go to for advice.

"Well, you have options," Kaji said. "You can just ignore it, of course. After all, I'm assuming that you didn't promise anyone anything."

Asuka just looked at him expectantly, clearly unsatisfied with that idea.

"Of course, sometimes, this sort of thing can be…motivational," Kaji said.

"'Motivational'?" Asuka echoed.

"Oh yes," Kaji said with a small smile. "There's little that can motivate a person to change for the better more than when they're trying to live up to the image that someone they care about has of them. When you're in a position like that, you find that you're sometimes willing to go to great lengths to keep a person with such a high opinion of you from being disappointed. And sometimes it helps you do things you never could before."

Kaji wisely decided to leave out that he knew this because he had once felt compelled to try and be a better man for Misato. He obviously hadn't succeeded, considering that she'd left him, but he understood the drive, nevertheless.

The redhead grew quiet as she digested this information, clearly still mulling over whatever problem she found herself confronted with.

"Does that help you?" Kaji asked.

"Maybe," Asuka replied.

* * *

The woman who worked the front desk of Germany's branch of STAR Labs, who by now was known as just Olga to everyone, considered herself nothing if not a professional. In the old days, she had prided herself on not batting an eye when confronted with even the most bizarre situations, keeping a cool head all the while.

However, ever since GEHRIN and then NERV started to claim the lion's share of government funding and STAR had begun to wither on the vine, those situations had become far less frequent. Indeed, these days it was rare for many people to arrive at all, save for the employees and the women who had come to visit the lab's fertility clinic. Pride drove Olga to do her best to maintain her strictly-professional appearance in the face of so much idleness, even though she easily could have gotten away with reading a pulp romance novel or doing crossword puzzles all day. The dullness often caused her to pine for the good old days, in which her job was often chaotic but never boring.

Or so she told herself. When a small group of men barged in like they owned the place, all of them wearing the uniform of the UN Army and with very large rifles slung over their backs, she found herself realizing that the "bad new days" really weren't _that_ bad.

"Who are you?" Olga demanded, rising from her seat.

The way her knees popped loudly as she stood ruined any small chance she might have had of being intimidating.

The small squad of armed men ignored her entirely, proceeding past her and to the door that led out of the lobby. In all her years of working for STAR, Olga had never had anyone just waltz right past her like this.

Or, if she had, those people hadn't been soldiers with guns.

"Stop! You can't just go back there!"

Again, the soldiers ignored her. Growling under her breath, Olga briefly considered phoning security, and then decided against it. The men who patrolled the STAR Labs building were armed with nothing more than pepper spray; the soldiers would likely be about as deterred by them as they were by her, only the odds of someone getting shot would be higher. Instead, she went back to her desk and snatched up the phone, quickly dialing a number. A moment later, the sound of a busy signal reached her ear.

Stifling a swear, the front desk woman quickly dashed toward the stairs, heading to the third floor of the building as quickly as her old legs would allow her. Olga arrived at the chief administrator's office just as the woman was concluding the call she'd been making.

"Fraulein Huber! Soldiers with guns have barged into the building. I tried to stop them at the front desk, but they walked right past me." Olga said.

For a second, Hanna Huber just blinked, struck dumb. However, she regained her composure with impressive speed.

"I'll go talk to them, Olga," she said. "You can go back to your desk."  
The building's front desk lady nodded and departed, secretly relieved to have passed the problem off to someone else. Hanna quickly made her way down to the ground floor and began to pursue the soldiers. It wasn't hard; all she had to do was follow the trail of indignant scientists.

"Excuse me!" she barked when she finally caught up to the men. "I am the chief administrator of this laboratory. Would you like to tell me what you're doing?"

"We have been ordered to seize all materials relating to one of your projects, ma'am," one of the soldiers answered.

"Ordered by whom?" Hanna demanded. "You can't just _do_ that!"

"I'm afraid we can, ma'am," the soldier replied, withdrawing a folded piece of paper from one of his pockets and handing it to the administrator.

Hanna quickly scanned the document, soon seeing that it was a set of written orders that the soldiers apparently presumed doubled as some kind of warrant. She was ready to protest further when her gaze reached the bottom of the paper. Her face paled.

The orders had been personally signed by both the Chancellor of Germany and Chairman Keel of the Human Instrumentality Committee, easily the two most powerful men in the country. If they wanted something from STAR, then the perpetually under-funded lab wasn't going to keep them from getting it, regardless of whether the seizure was actually legal or not.

"Fine," Hanna said with a defeated sigh, thrusting the papers back at the man. "Take whatever you want."

"Thank you, ma'am." the soldier replied, taking the document back.

He and his comrades continued on through the facility. Hanna, who had not read their orders closely enough to know what they were after, followed them, a sense of morbid curiosity propelling her forward. Her eyes widened, and then she pinched the bridge of her nose as they reached their destination. She just _knew_ that this incident was somehow related to Dr. Hamilton's mysterious disappearance.

The small group of soldiers opened a door labeled "Cold Storage: The Visitor."

_Oh, Emil, what have you gotten yourself into?_ She wondered.

* * *

Captain Chiron, the chief of NERV's Section Two, whistled a cheerful tune as he walked down the halls of one of the lower, more secretive sections of Central Dogma. He had been assigned a new task by the Commander. Ikari clearly felt that it was job of extreme importance, and it also looked easy. Chiron was hoping that he might be rewarded upon completion of the task, possibly even promoted to major.

_Then that Katsuragi bimbo will stop strutting around like she's so high and mighty,_ he thought, relishing the prospect.

He stopped outside the door of his destination, which was a maximum security holding cell. Commander Ikari had had it specially sound-proofed and had ordered that the walls be lined with lead. Chiron privately thought that this was a piece of extreme paranoia, but he wasn't about to tell the Commander as much.

After taking a moment to banish his pleased expression and set a far more neutral look in its place, Chiron opened the door and entered the cell.

A slim man wearing a white lab coat awaited him, bound to a chair.

"Good afternoon, Dr. Hamilton," Chiron greeted him politely.

"I'm not going to get out of here anytime soon, am I?" Hamilton asked wearily.

"Well, that's entirely up to you," Chiron said. "If you answer all the questions I have for you, then you can leave here today."

_In a body bag,_ the chief of Section Two added silently.

"What do you want to know?" Hamilton asked warily.

"I want to know everything you can tell me about Power Girl," Chiron said.

"No," Hamilton said firmly. "Never."

Chiron sighed, sounding like he was terribly inconvenienced by the scientist's recalcitrance but not seriously vexed. "Then, Doctor, I'm afraid your stay here is going to be very long," he said. "Very long, and very, _very_ unpleasant."

* * *

The Second Child found herself still grappling with the conundrum her trip to Germany had left her with more than a full week later, despite Kaji's words of advice. The internal debate she'd been having with herself ever since that day took up almost every spare moment she had, and that day was no exception; she silently mulled over it as she walked to school with Shinji.

People thought she was some great, shining light. And not just Hamilton and her deceased, extraterrestrial grandfather, either. Most of the city seemed to share Emil's opinion her, if her quest through the Internet was any indication.

She had always thought of her activities as Power Girl as sort of a hobby, or perhaps, at most, volunteer work. She'd certainly never thought that having such incredible powers created _responsibility_ for her to use them to help people, but Jor-El had clearly felt otherwise.

She found that part of her wanted very much to live up to the image people held of her. Asuka was always driven to be the best, and if a challenge was presented to her, she could barely resist accepting it; it was just in her nature. Not only that, but she _hated_ the feeling that she had somehow turned herself into some huge fraud, and in her prideful little heart, she believed that she could be or do any damn thing she wanted. Her conversation with Kaji hadn't exactly muted these desires, either.

And yet, she was hesitant. Part of her bristled at so abruptly discovering that people had such expectations of her. It wasn't as though she had _asked_ to be put on a pedestal.

…okay, maybe she sort of had, but even she didn't want to be put on one that was so damned _high_. She had just wanted some recognition, like she should get at NERV but didn't.

Also, Asuka wasn't so ignorant of her own habits and tendencies that she didn't know what she did once she accepted someone's expectations of her. Practically her whole life had been living up to expectations involving EVA, and she had internalized those expectations, until she pressed herself harder to succeed than anyone else. She felt pretty sure that she'd start doing the same thing if she decided to actually be the heroine that everybody thought she was.

And despite her signature self-confidence, she couldn't help but wonder if even the Great Asuka Langley Soryu, even Power Girl, could withstand _that_ much pressure.

_I hate this,_ she thought, irritated at herself.

She was almost as unfamiliar with feeling so uncertain about what she should do as she was with feeling like she was receiving more praise that she deserved. Asuka normally prided herself on being someone who was never held back by hesitation or frozen with fear. But that was easier when her only great concern was being the best EVA pilot, something she had decided to do long ago. This issue addressed the core of who she was and who she wanted to be; not even she could make a snap decision on it.

Of course, that didn't mean she had to _like_ the feeling that she was stuck at a crossroads.

"Asuka?" Shinji spoke, jolting her out of her reverie.

"What is it, baka?" she snapped, annoyed at having her thoughts interrupted.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"Of course I am!" she exclaimed. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"It's just that you've been so quiet all week," Shinji said. "You haven't been acting like yourself at all lately. Are you sure that nothing's wrong?"

Asuka found herself assailed by a rush of mixed emotions. Surprise that she'd been so obviously brooding that even Shinji had picked up at it. Touched at his sincere concern for her. And annoyed, too, at having the baka wimp Shinji worried about _her_.

"I'm fine," she grumbled. "Really, I don't see why you think there's anything out of the ordinary. Everything is perfectly normal."

**BOOM!**

The great blast of noise, timed as if just to prove her wrong, burst from the empty space a few yards in front of them. Accompanying the thunderous boom was a flare of white light, bright enough that it forced Shinji to turn his head away. Asuka had no problem looking directly at it, however, and she soon realized that the light wasn't just a random burst of illumination. Instead, it almost seemed to form some kind of…_tube_.

"What the hell?" Asuka muttered to herself, bewildered by the strange phenomenon.

A lone figure strode out of the flare of light, carrying an enormous club in one hand and a small box in the other. Asuka was amazed at the sight of the New God; he was the largest man she'd ever seen in her entire life, and if not for his strange clothing, he might have been a barbarian marching right out of ancient times.

He pressed a button on the small box he held, and the cacophony of noise and light immediately ceased, leaving only ringing silence in its place. He then attached the box to his belt.

"Who the heck are you?" Asuka demanded.

Shinji, meanwhile, just stood there, blinking spots out of his vision.

"I am Kalibak, and I have come for my revenge!" the huge man roared, suddenly advancing toward her.

Asuka's eyes widened, her shock at the whole, bizarre situation kept her from acting until it was a second too late. The brute's immense club crashed right into her torso and sent her flying, releasing a grunt of pain as she went. Her brief trip through the air ended abruptly as she crashed into the side of a nearby building, the impact powerful enough to severely dent the concrete wall and leave a spider web pattern of cracks radiating all around from the point of collision.

"Oh…" Asuka groaned.

Not since Brainiac had she encountered anyone who could deal out so much punishment.

"Asuka!" Shinji shrieked, horrified.

He had no idea how anyone could possibly take a blow like that and live to tell the tale. It was amazing to him that Asuka still drew breath, and he frankly didn't expect her to continue doing so for much longer. The Third Child felt numb with terror at this prospect.

Ignoring the Third Child's distress, Kalibak began to advance toward Asuka's dazed form, clearly intending on finishing the job.

Shinji suddenly felt white hot rage shoot through him. Not only had this monster just fatally wounded Asuka, but now he obviously intended to steal whatever moments of life she had left.

Propelled by more emotion than sense, the Third Child stepped into the path of the New God. "Don't you touch her!" he yelled.

The prince of Apokolips easily could have easily murdered Shinji Ikari, of course. A single blow from Kalibak would have instantly destroyed the Third Child's fragile human body; Shinji's bones would have shattered from the force of the impact, and his organs would have ruptured.

In short, he wouldn't even have known what hit him.

So it was fortunate for the Third Child that Kalibak didn't punch him. Instead, the New God reached out with his huge hand and grabbed hold of the front of Shinji's shirt. With a careless flick, Kalibak hurled the Third Child up straight into the air. Shinji screamed as he was sent upwards at a seemingly impossible speed, rising above the roofs of many of the city's buildings within seconds.

Asuka's eyes snapped wide open at the sound of the Third Child's cry of terror, and she looked up just in time to see him vanishing into the blue sky.

"Crap!" she hissed, standing up, bits of rubble falling off of her as she did.

She immediately took to the air, for once heedless of her secret identity. Shinji was going upwards like he'd been shot from a cannon; that Kalibak had quite an arm on him, but she knew that gravity would reclaim its hold on the Third Child eventually.

_Come on, __**come on**__,_ she thought as she flew after him.

Shinji reached the zenith of his upward flight, and then, for a moment, he just hovered in the air for a moment. The Third Child took this opportunity to draw in a deep breath.

Then Shinji started to fall, and he began screaming again, his arms and legs flailing wildly in the air.

Still, it was mercifully not a very close thing; she managed to grab hold of him while he was still above most of the buildings in the city.

Yet, apparently not realizing that he'd been saved, Shinji just kept right on screaming.

"Ugh! Baka, shut up!" Asuka snapped. "It's okay! You're fine! I've got you!"

Shinji abruptly fell silent and blinked, looking around with a stupefied expression on his face. "But who's got _you_?" he asked.

Asuka's only reply was a "you can't really be this dense, can you?" look.

"Oh," Shinji said weakly as comprehension dawned, clearly not over his terrifying trip through the air yet. "You're…you're…uh, you're one of them, aren't you?"

"Yeah," Asuka said flatly. "Now hang on, Shinji."

She flew him down to the roof of a nearby building, making sure that it was a good distance away from Kalibak's location. "You sit tight," she ordered him. "I'm going to take care of that creep!"

"Wait, Asuka! You can't just go…he could kill you!" Shinji sputtered.

"What do you suggest I do then, baka?" Asuka asked. "Call Section Two? What do you think those goons could do against _that_ guy?"

"But…but…" Shinji stammered.

Seeing genuine concern for her in his eyes, Asuka softened. "Relax, baka," she said with uncharacteristic gentleness. "I'm the Girl of Steel, remember? That jerk isn't going to get the better of me. I'll be fine."

Shinji nodded dolefully, knowing all too well that he was unable to stop her. "Please, be careful," he said.

"When am I not?" she asked, before kicking off into the air.

Shinji approached the edge of the building and sighed as he watched her seem to quickly shrink as she flew away from him.

"I was really hoping she wouldn't say that," he mumbled to himself.

* * *

Before heading back to find the very strong psycho who was after her, Asuka stopped on another rooftop to change, very glad that she had recently taken to carrying her costume around with her in her school bag. After a quick scan of the area with her super vision to confirm that no one was around to watch her, she quickly exchanged her school uniform for her costume, once more donning the appearance of Power Girl.

_Not like it'll make that much of a difference,_ she thought grimly.

Even if Shinji could keep his mouth shut about what he'd just discovered, there was little doubt in her mind that somebody else must have seen her endure that shot from Kalibak and then zoom off into the sky after the Third Child. Hell, Section Two had probably seen, and not even _they_ could possibly be dense enough not to put the pieces together.

It looked like her life was about to get even more complicated than it already was.

_Don't worry about that now,_ she told herself sternly. _Just focus on the guy who blew your cover._

Her features hardening into a scowl, she took to the sky once more, heading straight back toward the field of battle. She soon found Kalibak on the street near where he had first appeared. The great brute had obviously scared everyone else away by this point, and it wasn't hard to figure out how. The walls of several nearby buildings had been partially crumbled, and he had apparently picked up and randomly hurled several vehicles in his fury, including several police cars.

"Where is she?" Kalibak demanded of no one in particular, the streets being empty. "Where is she?"

Power Girl inserted two fingers in her mouth and whistled sharply, instantly getting the New God's attention. "Looking for me?" she asked, landing on the roof of one of the destroyed cars in the area.

"Yes!" Kalibak exclaimed exultantly. "Finally, you will pay for what you have done!"

He swung his immense club at her again, but this time she was expected the attack and dodged easily. The great stone weapon crumpled the already ruined vehicle like it was made out of tin foil.

Power Girl immediately put her foot down on the club once it had come to a stop, intending to deprive her enemy of the weapon. The great brute grunted loudly as he tried to pick it up, coming closer to succeeding than the superwoman would have liked to admit.

_Damn, he's strong,_ she thought.

Deciding to end the little contest, she fired a swift uppercut at his jaw. There was a loud, satisfying _crack_ as her small fist connected, and Kalibak staggered backwards several steps.

Pressing her advantage, Power Girl fired off more punches at the prince of Apokolips, hovering several feet off the ground in order to be able to reach his shaggy head.

_Ha!_ Power Girl thought as her enemy withered beneath her continued assault. _This guy's a paper tiger! Bigger they are, the harder they fall!_

It was at this exact moment that Kalibak grunted and lashed out with one of his tree trunk thick legs, kneeing Power Girl in the stomach. The superwoman gasped as the air was forced out of her lungs by the attack and doubled over.

With a loud roar, Kalibak struck, threading his fingers together and bringing his joined hands down upon the Girl of Steel's back. She crashed into the street with such immense force that she actually created a Power Girl-shaped crater in the street, sending asphalt flying in all directions.

"Foolish girl," Kalibak growled, grabbing hold of the scruff of her neck with one hand and picking her up so that she was eye level with him.

He drew back his enormous fist and struck her, sending her flying once again. Power Girl crashed into a parked car, utterly destroying this one as well. However, she was soon back on her feet, but not before Kalibak could advance on her.

Now it was her turn to endure a flurry of punches. His fists, each one larger than her head, crashed into her skull again and again, sending her staggering backwards. Power Girl could practically feel her eyeballs rolling around loosely in her head under the assault. Never before had she taken this kind of beating, and a feeling of complete _wrongness_ assailed her. She was _Power Girl_! It wasn't supposed to be _possible_ for someone to do this to her!

"Did you really think that you might have a chance to defeat me?" Kalibak sneered, never letting up on his attacks for a moment. "You may be far stronger than the other insects who populate this world, but at the end of the day, you are still just a girl. I am an immortal _god_!"

Power Girl felt hot rage ignite in her breast at this taunt, and her anger gave her strength. One of her arms abruptly shot out, soundly blocking his next punch.

"Idioten," she hissed, the fingers of her free hand curling into a fist. "Smacking down gods is my _job!_"

She threw her next punch at him with every ounce of her superhuman strength, something the Girl of Steel had been reluctant to use ever since discovering just how powerful she really was.

A great shockwave exploded from the point where her gloved fist hit the New God's face and rapidly surged outwards. All around the fight, glass shattered and car alarms started screeching as the wave of force spread out.

Yet as much abuse as the city took, Kalibak fared far worse. The New God went flying into the side of a nearby building, but this time, the prince of Apokolips didn't just dent the concrete wall. Instead he crashed straight through it and kept on going, emerging from the other side of the structure a second later. Nor was his flight finished; he kept right on going, crashing through the next building, and the next. He did not fall to the ground and stop until he had left a trail of destruction through over a dozen of the city's skyscrapers.

"Ugh," Kalibak groaned as he slowly tried to sit up.

Suddenly, a shadow fell over him. Dazed, he merely blinked and looked up.

Just in time to see Power Girl rapidly flying down toward him, a large van held up above her head. His eyes widened, all trace of confusion leaving his battered head, but the New God was built for power, not speed. He couldn't dodge in time.

The van crashed down upon him, crumpling under the force with which Power Girl had brought it down, and Kalibak disappeared beneath over two tons of steel and glass. Then, as if to add injury to injury, the vehicle's gas tank caught fire, and it began to spew red-orange flames, along with thick black smoke.

However, Power Girl was not content to name herself the victor yet. She quickly scanned beneath the pile with her X-ray vision and saw that her enemy was still moving beneath the burning, twisted metal, trying to push the wreck off of himself.

Undeterred by Kalibak's resilience, she reached down and hefted the junked remains of the van she'd used off of him, carelessly tossing it aside. She placed one booted foot on his barrel chest.

"Surrender yet?" she asked him.

"Never," he wheezed. "I must have my revenge."

With a disgusted sound, Power Girl reached down and grabbed hold of one of his large boots, taking to the air. "Why the hell do you keep talking about revenge?" she demanded as she soared higher and higher. "I never even met you before. I never did anything to you!"

"You…will," Kalibak grunted.

Scowling darkly, Power Girl contented herself with the knowledge that she'd probably never know what his problem with her was and hurled him downwards. There was a very loud _crack!_ as the New God almost instantly broke the sound barrier, his arms and legs flailing wildly as he fell at breakneck speeds.

Seconds later, he struck the earth with a tremendous _boom!_ throwing up a huge cloud of dust as he did so. Power Girl had to use her X-ray vision again to see him through all of it, and she smiled with fierce satisfaction at what she saw. The New God was lying motionlessly in the center of a very wide, very deep crater.

"Wow," she said, rotating her right arm. "If I'd thrown him any harder, I would've sent him falling into the Geofront!"

Descending, she easily blew away much of the dust that Kalibak's hard landing had thrown up, not wanting to get her costume unnecessarily dirty. Her feet touched down next to her fallen foe.

"_Now_ have you had enough, or do we need to do this again?" she asked. "Personally, I'm fine with going another round. This is a pretty decent workout! A little more and I might actually break a sweat!"

"Kill…you," Kalibak gasped, making a slow and laborious attempt to get back to his feet.

"Really?" Power Girl asked, surprised. "Hey, you know, I was just joking about wanting to go another round; this really isn't a decent workout at all, and I think I'd just feel bad about beating on you at this point!"

Kalibak gave her a glare that made it obvious he wished her nothing but a very slow and painful demise. However, his struggles were so pitiful at this point that the superwoman didn't feel the least bit threatened. She just crossed her arms over her chest and looked down at him.

**BOOM!**

"What the hell?" Power Girl exclaimed as yet another tunnel of white light appeared nearby. "Now what?"

As she watched, a trio of very unusual looking women emerged from the tunnel, one of them banishing the portal they had used to arrive with a device similar to the one Kalibak had used.

_Is this day going to start making sense any time soon?_ Power Girl wondered as she took in the sight of the newcomers.

One woman was clad in an outfit that very much resembled bondage gear, in Power Girl's opinion. The tight outfit was all black, covering her whole body and the top of her head. Thin strips of metal decorated the garment, circling her arms several times and outlining the shape of her breasts. A similar metal strip was looped horizontally around her head, covering her nose and leaving her eyes and mouth the only exposed parts of her face. She held a long lash made of metallic cable in each hand.

The next woman was very, very big, almost Kalibak's size. She was also very, very butch. She was dressed in a red and gold outfit with a wide black belt, high, mannish boots, and a helmet that entirely concealed her hair. Dark glasses concealed her eyes.

The third woman was, if possible, even more bizarre than her two companions. She was the smallest of the trio, being a bit shorter than the teenaged Power Girl, and thin and lithe. Her shoulder length hair was a deep green, and her face looked frozen in a small that was too large for her face; it made her look completely psychotic. She had green, fingerless gloves on her hands, a green loin cloth, and…Power Girl honestly wasn't sure if she was wearing a brief, black garment or if that was body paint.

"The Female Furies?" Kalibak growled. "Get out of here! She's mine!"

"Sorry, no can do," the voluptuous one in the S&M gear said. "Kanto's been watching you, and he thinks that you can't handle this on your own."

Kalibak clenched his fists and growled deep in his throat, but he was still in no shape to enforce his demand that the new arrivals beat it.

Power Girl smirked at the trio of women. "Isn't it a little early to be celebrating Halloween, ladies?" she asked. "October's still months away."

The one in black who seemed to be the leader smirked. "Oh, bravado. How cute," she said.

The green haired one released a very crazed sounding cackle. "I like her, Lashina!" she proclaimed. "Let's take her back with us and make her a Fury!"

"Now, now, Harriet, you know we have a mission to perform, and taking her back isn't it," Lashina said.

"Besides, I'd rather die than wear anything resembling what you people have on!" Power Girl taunted.

"That can be arranged," Lashina said, then turned to the big woman. "Stompa?"

"Let's _rock_ and roll!" the largest of the trio shouted in a voice that was deep for a woman, coiling her legs and then leaping an impressive distance into the air for someone so big.

Power Girl got into a defensive stance, expecting Stompa to try and come crashing down on her. However, the big woman's jump fell far short of that, and she instead landed on the ground between the superwoman and the other Female Furies. Power Girl soon realized that had been her intent all along, though; amazingly, the ground began to quake from the impact. The superwoman was briefly thrown off balance before she began to hover over the suddenly trembling ground.

Unfortunately, that moment was all the other two Furies needed. Lashina quickly advanced, running along the shaking earth with practiced ease. Tongues of electricity began to crackle up and down the lengths of her two lashes, and with a skilled flick of her wrist, she sent the deadly lengths of metal cord at her enemy. They cut through the air with a loud _crack_, crashing down upon Power Girl's shoulders.

"Ahh!" she cried, feeling all her muscles involuntarily contract and pain shoot through her as the lashes pumped ungodly amounts of electricity into her body.

She didn't know where this trio of freaks had gotten their weapons from, but so far, the damned things seemed on par with Brainiac's arsenal.

Fortunately, the lashes had not coiled around her body, and they quickly slid off of her, leaving Power Girl feeling very much like she'd just gotten struck by lightning, but not much worse for the wear.

She had almost cleared the cobwebs out of her mind when Mad Harriet struck. Short, wicked blades popped out of the knuckles of her gloves as she scurried toward Power Girl, giggling insanely the whole way. She slashed at her enemy's arm, the blades easily cutting through both fabric and skin, leaving a series of long slashes. Hissing with pain, Power Girl looked dumbly at the scratches. They weren't deep, and they were already starting to heal, but the sight of her own blood stunned her.

She was roughly pulled from her stupor as Mad Harriet slashed her again, this time across the back. Swallowing any pained sounds she might have made, the Girl of Steel instead began trying to catch Harriet. However, the Female Fury bounced wildly around her foe, displaying the agility of a monkey and speed that rivaled Power Girl's own. Soon, the Girl of Steel was covered in painful scratches.

"Ha ha ha!" Harriet giggled madly. "This is fun! The death of a thousand cuts for you!"

Power Girl growled, and her eyes shifted from their usual cool blue to a menacing shade of red. "Get _off_ me!" she shrieked.

Twin beams of orange light erupted from her pupils and struck Mad Harriet right in the side. The Female Fury was thrown to the ground, a thin trail of smoke rising from the rather bad burn she now had.

"Owie," Mad Harriet groaned.

"Die, Power Girl!"

The Girl of Steel quickly turned to see that Stompa had plucked a street light out of the ground and was now swinging the metal pole at her like it was a baseball bat.

Power Girl could have easily dodged the powerful but slow assault. However, with the day she was having, she didn't feel like playing keep away. Instead, she wanted to confront her enemies head on.

She held her hands up and grabbed the pole, stopping it cold. She could feel the jolt of impact travel through her body and grimaced. Whoever the hell these people were, they were pretty damned strong.

Almost as strong as she was.

Almost.

With a grunt, Power Girl raised the other end of the pole, lifting Stompa into the air along with it. The big woman was left helplessly flailing her thick legs in the air.

"Stompa! Let go!" Lashina barked.

The big woman did so, landing hard on the ground, but somehow not setting off another series of tremors. Before Power Girl could let go of the pole, the leader of the trio struck, sending her lashes flying forward. The electrified cords struck the pole, and the current instantly traveled up the length of the metal column Power Girl held and straight into her body. She let out a small cry of pain and dropped the pole, unable to hold back a sigh of relief when the flow of electricity was broken.

Smirking, Lashina cracked her whips. "You're not so strong, are you?" she asked. "I guess it just goes to show, every mortal will lose to the gods eventually, no matter how powerful she is."

Power Girl grit her teeth, and it was only the fresh memory of what those electric lashes felt like that kept her from just flying at Lashina.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Mad Harriet getting up. This whole situation wasn't good.

_Focus!_ _Remember what your trainers always told you about facing multiple enemies,_ she thought.

Divide and conquer.

A smirk appearing on her face, Power Girl allowed her feet to rise a few inches off the ground.

Then she began to spin in place.

In less than a heartbeat, Power Girl had transformed into a complete blur of red and white and gold. Had any mere mortals been around, they quickly would have become too dizzy to continue standing from merely _watching_ her do this, but the Girl of Steel felt no ill effects from what she was doing.

Then she allowed herself to descend back to the street. Immediately, the rapidly rotating girl bore into the street like a life sized drill bit, her feet rapidly chewing up the pavement and then the metal she found beneath. In no more than a few seconds, she had managed to dig herself a path straight down to the vast network of tunnels that existed in the roof of the Geofront, below the streets of Tokyo-3.

"I cannot believe that worked," she muttered softly to herself as she came to a stop in one such tunnel, looking up at the hole she had just made.

The idea to turn herself into a living drill had come to her while she'd been reviewing the battle against the Fifth Angel some time ago, but she hadn't bothered to try it until now. She hadn't really believed that she'd ever have much use for such a technique until now.

_Okay, now to see if they fall for it,_ she thought, pricking her ears as she flew away from the hole she'd created, picking a direction at random and flying in it.

"I'll get her!" Power Girl heard Stompa proclaim loudly from above her.

"No! Stompa, wait!" Lashina yelled.

But Stompa apparently ignored the other Female Fury, because a second later, the ground began to rumble once more. Power Girl looked up to see that the ceiling above her was opening up in an enormous crack. Obviously, Stompa had split the street with one terrific stomp.

A moment later, the Fury in question jumped down into the trench she'd made out of the underground tunnel, landing hard. She turned her head about as she searched for her prey.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are, Girlie," Stompa called in what was probably supposed to be some loose approximation of singing.

"Sure!" Power Girl said, darting out of the shadows to deliver a devastating punch right to Stompa's face.

God or not, the largest Female Fury's nose broke just like any mere mortal's when enough force was applied, Power Girl noted, not slowing down her attacks in the slightest. Stompa felt about as solid as a hundred-year-old oak tree, but even she couldn't stand her ground against the Girl of Steel's might. The New God went stumbling backwards several steps until she was up against the wall of the tunnel.

Then Power Girl unleashed one _really_ strong punch, sending Stompa right _through_ the concrete wall. Bits of artificial stone went flying in all directions, and the unfortunate Female Fury discovered the hard way what was behind the wall Power Girl had put her through.

Part of the power grid for the Evangelions' umbilical cable system. The New God crashed right into several exposed wires, and then _screamed_ as enough electricity to animate a 70 meter tall death machine was pumped into her. Power Girl watched as she writhed in agony for several seconds before finally collapsing to the ground, finally loosing contact with the power lines.

"One down, two to go," Power Girl said, clapping her hands together to dust them off.

She was about to head back up to the street level when an idea struck her, causing a rather wicked smile to cross her face. Looking around, she carefully grabbed one of the power lines that Stompa had been unfortunate enough to find and took off, keeping it hidden carefully behind her back. It was be awkward to try and conceal the thing, but if it worked…

"Where is Stompa?"

Power Girl looked up, seeing Lashina drawing near, with Mad Harriet hot on her heels. The Girl of Steel somehow managed to conceal the little smirk that threatened to appear on her face.

"Down there, stomping out a few Z's," she answered nonchalantly.

Lashina's face twisted into an angry scowl. With a flick of her wrist, she sent her deadly electrified lashes flying.

But this time, Power Girl was ready. Fighting her instincts, she reached out and grabbed both of the metal lashes with one hand, clenching her jaw shut against the cry of pain that suddenly wanted to bubble out. Ignoring her own discomfort, she revealed the power line she had brought from below the city.

Lashina's eyes widened as she realized what her enemy had planned, and she hurriedly began trying to detach her weapons. However, they were connected to her suit and could not be quickly discarded.

Using her super speed to its fullest, Power Girl quickly tied the lashes to the sparking power line she held, then hastily let go of the whole thing. The arcs of electricity surrounding the metal cords that were Lashina's chosen weapons immediately intensified, and Lashina herself let out a loud scream of agony.

"Oh no!" Mad Harriet exclaimed, hopping into action.

With one quick swipe of her blades, she had cut both of Lashina's weapons, breaking the flow of electricity. However, the massive amount of power had already done its job. Lashina collapsed to the ground, a thin trail of smoke rising off of her form. She groaned very softly.

"Well, now, it looks like it's just you and me, Pipsqueak," Power Girl said, cracking her knuckles menacingly and smiling at the last Female Fury standing.

Mad Harriet looked about wildly, as if hoping to find help from somewhere. That awful, frozen smile on her face did not waver, but she somehow managed to look desperate, nevertheless.

Then she let out a wild giggle and advanced on Power Girl, her blades glittering in the morning sunlight.

Power Girl decided that she had had just about enough of this battle at least fifteen minutes ago, and didn't want to entertain the irksomely quick Female Fury. She took a deep breath, filling her lungs to capacity, and held it for a moment.

Then she exhaled.

The gust of subzero air caught Mad Harriet right as she was in the middle of a leap. All of her movements suddenly became slower, and Power Girl could hear a soft creak as the Female Fury ground to a stop entirely. Her skin changed to a pale blue color.

And then she fell out of the air like a stone, landing on the ground. The smallest Female Fury immediately curled up into a fetal position and began to shiver.

"C-c-cold," she whined through chattered teeth.

_Finally,_ Power Girl thought, allowing herself a languid stretch. _Now what the heck do I do with these freakazoids? Somehow I don't think that a normal jail—_

**BOOM!**

"You've got to be kidding me," she said, turning to see yet _another_ of the tunnels of light that had been dropping problems into her lap all morning.

Unfortunately, it was truly happening once more. This time it was a man who emerged from the tube of light. His clothing would have seemed appropriate for a Renaissance fair, but he was standing on a futuristic looking floating platform.

A futuristic looking floating platform that seemed to be utterly bristling with weapons.

_Could this day __**get**__ any weirder or more annoying?_ Power Girl wondered as she looked up at the strange new addition.

"Honestly," the man said, ignoring her for a second and looking down at Lashina's prone form, "how difficult can this really be? She's _just_ gained her powers. She's not as powerful as she'll become, and she has next to no experience."

"Sh-She's s-still r-really tough, K-Kanto," Mad Harriet said, still laying on the ground in a fetal position and shivering.

Kanto didn't justify that with any response beyond a tired sigh, pressing a button on the console of his floating platform. Immediately, several gun barrels that had been positioned all along the circumference of the platform pointed skywards, and with a series of muffled booms, a missile launched from each one in rapid succession. The projectiles flew off into the sky, heading in all directions.

_Crap!_ Power Girl thought as watched the missiles streak off into the sky. _Those things might be able to level the whole city!_

Immediately taking to the air and flying at her very top speed, Power Girl began to pursue the nearest missile. Doing some very quick math in her head, she soon determined that her chances of being able to actually catch every last one were slim.

That left her with one choice.

Twin beams of heat burst from her eyes and stuck the nearest missile. Its casing was unable to endure the abuse, and it burst almost immediately. However, instead of the large explosion Power Girl had expected, the missile instead sprayed a dark pink mist everywhere.

She grimaced. If the missiles were chemical or biological weapons, that was seriously bad news.

But that didn't change the fact that she still couldn't stop all of them. Reasoning that it at least couldn't be a _bad_ thing if the missiles were detonated early, she sped off after the next one and destroyed it with her heat vision, too. Perhaps the stuff inside the missiles would just dissipate or die off if they were blown too far from the ground. The Girl of Steel frantically destroyed every missile she could find until the skies were finally clear.

_Did I get them all?_ She wondered, and began to scan the city with her X-ray vision.

However, she never got the chance to do a very thorough search, because mere moments after she'd started, a beam of bright blue light crashed right into her. She let out a grunt of pain and went tumbling through the air end over end for several seconds before she managed to use her flying ability to halt her descent, throwing her cape off her head with a scowl.

She looked up to see that Kanto was above her, still on his flying platform. The New God was pulling on a pair of what looked like high tech, armored gauntlets.

"And they all made this seem like beating you was so hard," he mused.

Power Girl sneered. "It's not just hard," she said with her characteristic bravado. "It's impossible!"

With that, she went hurtling upwards at Kanto, her fist held out before her. The New God was unimpressed and clenched both his hands into fists.

Suddenly, a pair of matching fists, both of them seemingly made out of some kind of glowing energy and each about as big as Power Girl herself was, appeared in the air between herself and Kanto. The New God swung his arm in a punching motion, and one of the energy hands followed suit, slamming directly into the approaching superwoman.

"Ugh!" Power Girl groaned as the fist hit her dead on.

The Girl of Steel went tumbling out of the sky, soon landing painlessly on the ground below, cracking the asphalt as she hit the street. She quickly sat up and then shook her head to clear it.

"What the hell ever happened to turn this group of freaks against me?" she wondered aloud, rubbing her head.

A pair of legs wrapped in tight black fabric suddenly appeared in Power Girl's field of vision. "If we succeed here, you'll never know that," Lashina said.

The Girl of Steel immediately hopped back to her feet and retreated from Lashina, only to run straight into Mad Harriet, who still looked a little blue around the gills but was obviously on her feet and functional once more.

"You won't know _because you'll be dead!_" the green haired New God cackled, slashing at Power Girl's shoulder.

Power Girl hissed in pain and stumbled away…right into Stompa's boot. The largest of the Female Furies kicked her right in the back; Power Girl's eyes bugged out as she felt her spine absorbing the entire impact from a blow far more powerful than the one that had shattered the street earlier. She went staggering forward, barely keeping herself on her feet, only to find herself coming face to face with the first nuisance she'd encountered that day.

"No one humiliates Kalibak!" the New God roared, his huge fist crashing right into Power Girl's abdomen.

Power Girl was thrown off her feet, releasing a grunt of pain as she flew, landing on the ground several hundred yards away. She immediately attempted to get up, but her body—her superhuman body—was currently unwilling to heed her mind's commands. Looking up, she saw that Kanto was descending toward her on his damned flying platform.

A strange sense of calm swept over her at that moment, even as she continued to struggle to get back into motion. She had increasingly expected to die in an Evangelion battle, if she died in combat at all, but she supposed this wasn't so bad. She had fought valiantly; if some new jerk hadn't shown up every time she was about to claim victory, she would have won. Death would be a release, not just from the problems she'd been facing recently, but from the loneliness that she rarely acknowledged she felt, yet suffered from constantly anyway. She discovered, to her surprise, that she was pretty much okay with never having gotten that one shining moment of greatness in Evangelion piloting she'd always wanted.

Indeed, she was mildly shocked to realize that the only thing she really regretted was knowing that all the reassurances she'd given Shinji were about to become lies.

The New Gods drew near to Power Girl.

"You want this more than any of us, Kalibak," Lashina said. "The kill is yours."

"Thank you," Kalibak said. He grabbed a hold of Power Girl's leotard and pulled her up. "Say good-bye, Girl of Steel."

She forced herself to look defiantly in his eyes.

"Let her go, ugly!" someone shouted from behind the whole group.

Kalibak wasn't given much of a choice in the matter, because the next moment, a blindingly bright bolt of electricity struck him right in the back. The New God released a roar of pain and went staggering forward, dropping Power Girl. She tumbled to the ground and managed to get herself into a sitting position.

_Looks like this day __**can**__ get weirder,_ she thought, looking up at the new arrivals.

There were four of them, and they all appeared to be somewhere between sixteen and nineteen. They were all hovering several meters above the ground, and all of them were dressed very differently, but there was one obvious common element between their clothing.

Their belt buckles were all identical. Each one was perfectly round, with a circle of gold on the edges. Inside the circle was a yellow "L" and a symbol that looked like a shooting star set against a black background.

Upon closer inspection, Power Girl realized that they were all also wearing rings that boasted the same symbol.

However, she barely noticed this, because most of her attention was glued on one of the newcomers in particular. The one who had captured Power Girl's interest was a very attractive brunette wearing a tight costume that was composed mostly of a reflective, silvery material. A red triangle covered the chest and shoulders of her outfit.

And within that triangle was the very same, five-pointed S-shield that adorned the blankets Dr. Hamilton had given her. The same five-pointed S-shield that Jor-El had worn.

"Whoa," another of the new arrivals breathed, looking down at Power Girl. This one was a beautiful blond woman in a red and white bodysuit, with a simple drawing of the planet Saturn on the chest. "It's her."

"Still in her first costume, too," another one added, this a redheaded man in a black costume with thunderbolts emblazoned on the chest. "Wow, we really have traveled."

"Focus, guys," a young man said. He had dark hair and was in a mostly black costume with bits of purple on the front. He wore no symbol save for the one on his belt buckle, but there were four, large metal studs on his chest.

"Did you really believe that the Legion of Superheroes would allow you to do this?" asked the young woman who wore the House of El's family crest. "Did you think that _I_ would let you do this?"

"Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl, Superwoman," Kalibak greeted each of them in turn, his voice low and menacing. "Leave now, Legionnaires, and we will spare you."

"Funny," Cosmic Boy said, "we were just about to make you the same offer."

Kalibak growled deep in his throat. "Get them!" he commanded the other New Gods.

"Legionnaires, attack!" Cosmic Boy ordered, his hands suddenly starting to glow with blue light.

There was a cry from Kanto before the battle had even been properly joined, and Power Girl turned to see that his floating platform crumpling up all around him; the metal was all suffused with that same blue glow that Cosmic Boy's hands were emitting, and it suddenly looked like a thing alive.

A thing alive that was trying to eat Kanto.

The New God leapt off of his vehicle just before it would have closed in around him. He landed in a roll, then quickly sprang to his feet and drew a long rapier that had been hanging at his hip. However, this, too, was made out of metal and quickly fell victim to Cosmic Boy's powers. The length of the blade glowed with that familiar blue light, and suddenly it sprang to life, almost like a snake, and wrapped itself around Kanto, pinning his arms to his side.

The other New Gods weren't faring much better. Mad Harriet sprang toward Saturn Girl, but the blonde's eyes suddenly began to glow with white light, and the smallest Female Fury's soon began to do the same, causing her to abruptly come to a stop.

"Hey!" the green haired woman shrieked, grabbing hold of her head, "get out of my mind, telepath!"

"Yeah…no way," Saturn Girl replied flatly, holding her hands out toward Mad Harriet.

The limber warrior woman suddenly turned and launched herself at Stompa, slashing at the much larger New God with her blades. Stompa let out an enraged cry as Mad Harriet attached herself to the other Female Fury and refused to be moved.

"Get…offa me!" Stompa grunted, trying to grab hold of her comrade in arms.

"I…I can't!" Mad Harriet shrieked, moving too quickly for Stompa to easily grab.

"That wasn't a request!" Stompa snapped, throwing a punch and managing to land a glancing blow on Mad Harriet's burned side.

Both the green haired Female Fury and Saturn Girl released a hiss of pain. Stompa finally grabbed hold of the smaller woman and flung her, none too softly, at Saturn Girl. The blonde was barely able to dodge the living missile.

"Finally!" Stompa said. "Now I can—"

"Take this!" Superwoman proclaimed, her fist crashing right into Stompa's face.

The largest Female Fury went flying, landing on the street several hundred meters from her original position. With a grunt, she got back to her feet and forced a grin.

"I haven't kicked anybody's teeth out yet today," Stompa said. "Looks like I'll have to fix that."

Superwoman just smirked. "Bring it on," she challenged.

Meanwhile, Lightning Lad was facing off against Lashina. The Female Fury favored the young man with a sultry grin. "Hello there, handsome," she said. "I'll bet the two of us could create some serious sparks together."

Lightning Lad smirked. "Sorry, lady. I like bad girls, but not _that_ bad," he said. "Besides, you're _way_ too old for me."

"Brat," Lashina growled.

She struck with her lashes, or what was left of them, after Mad Harriet had been forced to cut them earlier. Lightning Lad dodged them easily and retaliated with a blast of electricity, which Lashina avoided nimbly.

"Afraid to feel the thunder, big man?" Lashina taunted, twirling her lashes menacingly.

"You wanna do it _that_ way?" he asked with a cocky grin. "Fine! We'll play _my_ game!"

Lashina struck with her lashes again, and this time, Lightning Lad didn't dodge. Instead, he grabbed them, one in each hand. The Legionnaire grit his teeth, clearly in pain but unwilling to relenting. The crackling tongues of electricity crawling over Lashina's weapons suddenly increased dramatically in intensity, and the Female Fury groaned in agony.

Meanwhile, Superwoman and Stompa were trading blows in what looked like a pretty even contest, Saturn Girl was still dealing with Mad Harriet, and with Kanto incapacitated, this just left Kalibak and Cosmic Boy. The young man's hands glowed blue, and a nearby car rose up into the air. With a gesture from Cosmic Boy, the vehicle went speeding through the air at the prince of Apokolips.

With a loud roar, Kalibak punched the approaching projectile, sending it crashing back to the ground away from him. He began to advance toward Cosmic Boy, who narrowed his eyes. The blue glow around his hands grew brighter, and more objects floated off the ground. Traffic lights, mailboxes, more cars, parking meters, and any other metallic object that the youth to turn into a makeshift missile with his magnetic powers were sent hurtling through the air at Kalibak.

Unfortunately, the angered New God either contemptuously swatted the objects out of the way or ignored the impacts entirely, as though they were no more troublesome than mosquito bites. The air around him soon became thick with flying metal objects, but still Kalibak kept advancing toward Cosmic Boy, seemingly as implacable as death itself.

The dark haired Legionnaire began to, discreetly as possible, look around for help. Unfortunately, all his comrades in arms were quite occupied with their own battles.

When he looked back at Kalibak, the New God was standing right before him. The prince of Apokolips reached out and grabbed Cosmic Boy, his huge fist easily encircling the young man's torso. Any and all metal flying through the air at that moment quickly fell to the ground.

"Tell me, Legionnaire," Kalibak spoke as he slowly tightened his grip, "was it worth it? Is protecting her and everything she represents to you truly worth the cost of your very life?"

Even as he struggled futility to escape the New God's grasp, Cosmic Boy managed to get out an answer. "Yes."

Kalibak sneered. "You are a fool."

"And you talk too much!" Power Girl yelled, as she punched him in the side of the head.

"Ugh!" Kalibak grunted as he went staggering backwards, releasing his hold on Cosmic Boy as he did so.

"Nice shot!" Cosmic Boy said.

"Less talking, more fighting!" Power Girl replied, kicking Kalibak in the side.

Cosmic Boy complied, levitating several items and sending them right at Kalibak. However, a rather goofy smile remained on his face. "This is so cool," he said softly to himself.

Power Girl heard the remark but ignored it for the moment, mentally filing it away with all the other strange things that had been happening that day. She kept her attention focused on Kalibak.

"You really want to go through all of this again, big man?" she demanded, not relenting for a moment. "You know how punishment I can dish out."

Kalibak quickly looked around, seeing that his allies weren't doing very well. Mad Harriet was no longer Saturn Girl's puppet, but the green haired Female Fury clearly hadn't thrown off her enemy's telepathic influence entirely; she was stumbling about as if drunk as she tried to attack the blonde. Lashina was obviously losing her contest with Lightning Lad, and Stompa looked about ready to collapse.

Grimacing, he somehow managed to take hold of small, boxy device clipped at his belt between the blows Power Girl was administering. He pressed one of the few buttons on it.

**BOOM!**

The now familiar portal of light appeared behind Kalibak, and he allowed himself to fall into it, instantly disappearing. Power Girl was about to follow him, but Cosmic Boy's hand on her shoulder caused her to pause. A moment later, the portal had winked out of existence.

Lashina had not missed the artificial thunderclap that had heralded Kalibak's exit; it would've been hard to fail to hear that. Seeing that the prince of Apokolips had abandoned them, she gave a hard pull on her weapons, yanking them from Lightning Lad's grasp.

"Stompa! Harriet! With me!" she commanded, breaking out into a run.

Her fellow Furies immediately obeyed, following her to where Kanto's bound form lay. Once they were all together, Lashina took hold of her own device and pushed the button on it.

**BOOM!**

Once more, a portal of bright white light erupted from thin air. Stompa picked up Kanto, throwing him roughly over her shoulder, and the Female Furies marched into the light and disappeared. Moments later, the tube of light vanished, and the world suddenly seemed eerily quiet.

At least, until Lightning Lad spoke up. "That was _awesome_!" he exclaimed.

Smiling, Cosmic Boy turned to Power Girl. He took her hand and pumped it enthusiastically. "I'm Cosmic Boy, in case you didn't catch my handle earlier, and may I say that it's _such_ an honor to meet you," he said formally but with much obvious excitement.

Blinking, Power Girl just let him shake her hand for several seconds, too confused by the whole situation to react at first. Then she pulled her hand back.

"Can somebody tell me just what the hell is going on?" she demanded. "I've had people dropping out of thin air either trying to kill me or save me all morning, and I have no idea why!"

Superwomen stepped forward, an amused smile on her face. "Rokk, why don't you guys start working on the clean up, while I have a few words with PG here?"

It was obvious that the other three Legionnaires didn't like this idea much, but Cosmic Boy reluctantly agreed, and they flew off, leaving Power Girl with Superwoman.

"Okay," Power Girl said once they were gone, "are you going to explain things to me now?"

"Sure, but why don't we find someplace less exposed to talk?" Superwoman asked. "You look like you could use some sun."

Superwoman took to the air, setting a leisurely pace that Power Girl easily matched. The brunette flew until they reached the top of a tall skyscraper that was directly in the path of the light from the late morning sun. Actually feeling her body greedily soaking in the rays, Power Girl immediately began to feel less tired and battered.

"Nice, isn't it?" Superwoman asked with a big, easy smile as she sat down on the roof, her legs dangling over the edge of the building.

"Yeah," Power Girl agreed absently, sitting down next to Superwoman. "So who _are_ you, anyway, and why are you wearing _that_?" she asked, indicating the S-Shield on Superwoman's chest.

"You can call me Lura," she answered. "As for the rest of it, well, there's no way I can say this that'll make it any easier to believe. I'm your descendant from the future. One thousand years in the future to be exact."

"My descendant from the future," Power Girl said in a flat, skeptical tone.

"Yeah," Lura said. "You're my great-great-great-great grandmother, or something. I'm not sure how many 'greats' there are between you and me. A couple of centuries ago, one of my ancestors apparently got tired of being super and immigrated to a planet that orbits a red sun. Family history gets a blurry during the period when we were all 'normal.' I had no idea I had kryptonian blood in me until I moved to Earth and started getting super powers."

"I see," Power Girl said, even though her head was spinning. "So what was the deal with Kalibak and his friends?"

"Well, they're pretty much immortal," Lura said. "They exist in your time, and at some point in your future—but my past—you'll make an enemy out of Apokolips. Kalibak was trying to snuff you out before then."

Though Power Girl was reluctant to admit it, this explanation, crazy though it was, _did_ seem to fit. It would certainly explain why Kalibak had kept talking about getting his revenge against her, despite her not even knowing him.

And in a way, it seemed appropriate that the very strange events of that day would have an equally wild explanation.

"Okay, so that explains why he and his buddies were after me. And it's obvious why _you_ don't want me killed," she said, looking pointedly at the S-shield on Lura's costume. "But what about those Legion guys? Why did they all risk their lives by traveling back in time and fighting gods to help me?"

"Partly because they're superheroes," Lura said with a smile, "but mostly because you're _our_ hero."

"What?" Power Girl said, her eyes widening. "But didn't you say you're from a _thousand_ years in the future?"

"Oh yes," Lura said, her smile widening. "You're still very much remembered then."

"Wow," Power Girl said, leaning back slightly.

"You don't realize it right now, but you're at the dawn of what's known in my time as the Heroic Age," Lura said.

She held her hand out, palm downwards. A shaft of light shot out from the ring she was wearing and projected a hologram of several people. Power Girl didn't recognize most of them, but she did pick an adult Wonder Girl out of the crowd.

"Cool ring," Power Girl commented.

Lura smirked. "It's a Legion Flight Ring," she said. "Brainy invented them for us."

"Brainy?" Power Girl asked.

"Brainiac 5," Lura answered. "He's the descendant of the one you're familiar with, but he's sort of the black sheep of the Brainiac line. Or maybe the white sheep, considering that he's a good guy.

"Anyway, the rings give us the ability to fly and projects a force field around our bodies to protect us," Lura continued. "I don't need any of that, of course, but I was happy to get it, anyway. The Legion only awards them, along with full membership, to people they're sure are committed to using their special abilities to help people and make the universe a better place."

"Right," Power Girl said, her tone a little distant.

"Anyway, a lot of heroes, both super and normal, are going to rise soon, but you're the one people remember most," Lura said, her eyes shining with obvious admiration. "You're the one that inspired the founders of the Legion to go into the hero business to begin with. We've been trying to bring about a new Heroic Age."

"Wow," Power Girl said again.

The world had suddenly taken on a dream-like quality; if Power Girl had woken up right then, she wouldn't have been at all surprised.

She could barely believe that Lura—and apparently, the rest of the Legion of Superheroes—so admired her. Now that the fighting was over, her descendant seemed perfectly relaxed, radiating an effortless self-confidence that even Power Girl found enviable. And Lura was clearly overflowing with idealism and the desire to help people.

All of it made Power Girl feel like a phony again.

More than that, listening to Lura go on about what she would become also gave her an unpleasant, sinking feeling. Suddenly it seemed like her future was already mapped out, and that she had no real say in it. She had always considered herself the master of her own destiny, but now she wasn't so sure.

"You don't seem very pleased," Lura noted. "I'd expect most people would be happy to know they're remembered, and that they made a real difference."

"It's just that…" Power Girl hesitated.

She was never one to just unload her troubles onto people. Indeed, she often tried to make it seem as though she had no troubles at all. However, she dearly wanted to confess her true nature to someone, and Lura struck her as very trustworthy, for some reason.

And in any case, she'd probably never see her again after that day.

"I don't know if I even _want_ to be this great hero that everybody's been saying I am recently," Power Girl said. "The only reason I put on this costume to begin with was because I wanted people to praise me."

She expected Lura to immediately do her best to convince her that she should be a hero, given the circumstances.

So her descendant's reply surprised the hell out of her. "If you don't want to be a real hero, then don't."

"What?" Power Girl asked. "But if I don't, then won't the Legion never exist?"

"That's possible, but I believe that the Legion will still come to be," Lura said sanguinely. "I have faith that the ideals of the founders would lead them to form the Legion even without the memory of a historical figure who embodies those ideals to rally around. And I'd rather not be in an organization that was built around the memory of someone who started helping people because she was a glory hound, then kept at it only because she felt like she had to."

"But what about you?" Power Girl asked. "If my personal history changes enough, you might never exist at all."

Lura smiled. "Well, I also have faith that sometimes, love between two people is just destined to be," she said. "I'm not very worried about being erased from history."

After that, the two of them were silent for a long moment, silently soaking in the revitalizing sunshine.

"Tell me something," Lura said. "I know that the reason you became Power Girl was for people's admiration, but do you feel any satisfaction just from knowing that you managed to help people? That some people are alive because you helped them?"

Power Girl considered for a moment. She had never really spent much time pondering the people she rescued until the day she'd spoken to Hamilton, and at the time, their gratitude had just seemed daunting. But now that she thought about it, it was hard not to feel considerable satisfaction, knowing that she'd made a difference.

"Yes," she answered.

Lura smiled. "You have it in you to be a great hero, a real hero," she said. "You just have to embrace it. And stop worrying so much about Evangelion. You think that's the only thing that makes you truly special, but in reality it's just holding you back."

Power Girl scowled and crossed her arms over her chest. "You certainly seem to know a lot about me," she said.

Lura grinned. "You're a historical figure," she said. "Of course, for all I know, the history tapes were all wrong. It has been a thousand years, you know."

Power Girl was about to say something else when she spotted a figure flying through the air toward them. It was Saturn Girl.

"We're ready to go," she announced. "I've altered the memories of everyone in the city. They'll all believe that the damage was caused by an earthquake."

"Already?" Lura asked, getting to her feet. "That was quick."

"We can't drag our feet here, much as we might like to," Saturn Girl said.

"Why not?" Power Girl spoke up as she stood.

Saturn Girl looked hesitant to respond, but Lura quickly answered. "We need to rally the entire Legion and move on Apokolips," she said. "If we don't destroy whatever device they used to make their motherboxes capable of time travel, they'll try this again."

"You need some extra muscle?" Power Girl offered, not bothering to ask what a motherbox was.

Lura and Saturn Girl traded a look.

"That's a very generous offer, but this is our fight, not yours," Saturn Girl said. "Besides, storming Apokolips isn't as scary a proposition in our time as it is in yours."

"Well, it looks like this is good-bye," Lura said. "Good luck, Grandma. I have faith in your ability to become a true hero."

Power Girl's response was to scowl at her descendant. "Don't call me Grandma. I'm way too young for to be called _that_," she said, but she was struggling to hold back a smile.

Lura impulsively reached out and embraced her ancestor. Power Girl was surprised by the gesture, but after a moment she returned it.

"It was really great to met you," Lura said as she let go and took a step back from Power Girl.

Smiling, Saturn Girl concentrated. Her blue eyes suddenly began to glow with a white light, and Power Girl's started to do the same a moment later.

Lura sighed and waved her hand in front of Power Girl's face. Her ancestor didn't even blink.

"I wish you didn't have to do that," she told Saturn Girl.

"You know we have to do our best to preserve the timeline," Saturn Girl replied, though she didn't sound very pleased about it, either. "And it's not right for someone to know her own future."

"I guess not," Lura said, the two of them taking to the air. "Hey, are you sure that we're ready to leave? Some of the damage that was done during the battle wouldn't be explained away by an earthquake."

Saturn Girl smiled ruefully. "We're sure. Rokk actually had to do some more damage to keep it from being obvious that someone was thrown through about ten buildings, but we should be good to go."

"I think I'm going to do another flyover around the city real quick, just to make sure," Lura said.

Saturn Girl shrugged. "If you want," she said. "But be quick about it, or you'll hear about it from Rokk and Brainy."

"Got it," Lura said, diverting her flight course. "Meet you at the ship."

* * *

Meanwhile, Power Girl continued to stand motionlessly atop a skyscraper, her eyes still glowing with that white light.

Then a bird cawed loudly nearby, and she abruptly backed up a step, shaking her head to clear it. Her eyes returned to their normal state.

"Where the heck am I?" she wondered, rubbing her head.

She racked her brain for a moment, soon coming up with the answer to her question. An earthquake had struck the city that morning, and she had been rescuing people trapped beneath big chunks of rubble and the like. She must have stopped on the building to search for others in need of Power Girl's services.

"Better get back to work," she said to herself, taking to the sky.

* * *

A few minutes later, Lura touched down in a rice patty outside the city of Tokyo-3. It was a very remote location, about as close to the middle of nowhere as you could get while still keeping close to the fortress of mankind.

Which was why the Legion had chosen the location for their appearance into the past.

Situated in the very center of the rice patty was a large vehicle with a great dome of a windshield that made the whole thing look like a giant sphere. And waiting outside the sphere were Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl, and one other.

This last was a young man with green skin and blond hair. On his forehead was a not-quite triangle composed of three dots and two lines. It was a symbol that Power Girl would have recognized immediately, yet despite the resemblance to the original Brainiac, Brainiac 5 truly was member of the Legion as Lura had told her ancestor.

However, that didn't mean he was the most pleasant individual around.

"Where have you been?" he demanded without preamble as Lura landed by the sphere.

"Relax, Brainy. I just wanted to fly over the city one more time to make sure that we didn't miss anything," Lura replied, used to her comrade's ire.

He scowled darkly. "The odds of us corrupting the timeline increase diametrically with every second we're here, and you decided to just needlessly fly around the city?"

"Yup," Lura agreed nonchalantly.

"Do you even know what 'diametrically' means?" Brainiac 5 asked.

"It means 'really fast.'" Lura answered. "Hey, if the odds of our messing up history goes up with every second we're here, shouldn't we get going?"

Even Brainiac 5 couldn't argue against that conclusion, so the Legionnaires all piled into the Time Sphere. The interior was fairly spacious, but with five of them, it was still a rather tight fit. Brainiac 5 quickly sat down at the craft's control panel and began the craft's activation sequence.

"Hey, Brainy, you did hack into the city's computer system to alter any recordings of our activities today, right?" Cosmic Boy asked as the green skinned.

"Of course I did," Brainiac 5 scoffed. "You don't really think that getting past the defenses of that primitive 'MAGI' system they have here would be challenge for me, do you? I _am_ a twelfth-level intelligence, after all."

"I dunno, Brainy," Lightning Lad piped up. "I'd say that you were slipping. I mean, here we have a time machine and we were _still_ late to the party."

"Traveling back in time is a _very_ delicate operation, I'll have you know," Brainiac 5 retorted. "I'd explain the details, but I don't think you'd be able to comprehend them."

"Hey!"

Ignoring the bickering of the two, Cosmic Boy turned his attention to Lura. The normally cheerful brunette looked very glum, especially considering that the Legion had won the day.

"Something bothering you?" he asked her.

Lura sighed. "I feel bad for her," she said.

"Power Girl?" Cosmic Boy asked with some surprise.

The original Girl of Steel, the Legion's collective idol. was not someone to be pitied, so far as he was concerned.

Lura nodded. "She's just so uncertain," she said. "She doesn't seem at all like the person we know from the history tapes."

Cosmic Boy shrugged. "It's because she's still young," he said. "She'll figure things out as she gets older."

"Still, I wish we didn't have to wipe her memory after I got to speak with her," Lura said. "I think it would really help her to know that I have faith in her ability to be a true hero."

"Kryptonian minds are harder to affect with telepathy than human minds," Saturn Girl spoke up. "So it's likely that she'll retain some memory of what happened, if only on a subconscious level. It won't be totally as if this never happened."

"Oh, I know that," Lura said, a small smile creeping onto her face.

_That_ comment caught Brainiac 5's attention. He whirled about to face her, ignoring the increasingly fast beeping of the Time Sphere's control panel. "What did you _do_?" he demanded.

Smiling, Lura held up her hands. Brainiac 5's eyes widened, immediately realizing what was there. Or, more accurately, what _wasn't_ there.

"You can't—!"

He was cut off as the Time Sphere's activation sequence finally completed, and the craft vanished from the rice patty, on its way back to the 31st century.

* * *

Meanwhile, back in the city, a NERV crew was on the surface, surveying the damage that had been caused by that morning's 'earthquake.'

"You know, Keiji, I just can't believe this," a man by the name of Hajime commented to his colleague. "I mean, I'm used to the damn Angels tearing apart the city every month or so, but now Mother Nature's at it, too? It's just getting to be too damn much. I say we just let the city fall apart. Place is obviously cursed."

The other man who was with him, Keiji, ignored the rant. He was used to the long-winded diatribes his partner liked to deliver. "Hey, what's that?"

"What's what?" Hajime asked.

"This," Keiji said, moving some rubble aside and exposing a large canister of dark pink liquid.

It was an undetonated section of one of Kanto's missiles, the only one that both Power Girl and the Legion had missed.

"What the hell is that?" Hajime asked.

"If I knew that, would I have asked you?" Keiji replied. "Think we should take it to base?"

"Probably," Hajime said. "Mystery chemical like that could be dangerous. I wouldn't want to just hurl it into the trash."

"Agreed."

The two men worked together to heft the large canister into the back of their van, both of them oblivious to how intriguing some members of NERV would find it contents, and how much trouble it would soon cause.

* * *

"What a day," Asuka grumbled to herself as she shuffled into her bedroom that evening.

NERV gone completely _ballistic_ upon discovering that an earthquake had rocked the city, and that two of the Children had gone missing. Once she was done being Power Girl for the day, Section Two had rounded her up and dragged her into the base for a totally unnecessary checkup and to be bombarded with questions by NERV Security. They were unusually paranoid, which was really saying something. That was no huge surprise, though, considering that the Third Child—the baka—had somehow managed to wind up on the roof of a random skyscraper, with no idea of how he'd gotten there.

The Second Child actually felt fatigued by the day she'd endured, even though the "light" work of moving giant chunks of rubble about to help rescue workers shouldn't have tired her. She wondered if she should perhaps make it a point to eat and sleep more, even though she hadn't felt the need to do either activity much since her powers had surfaced in earnest.

_Maybe I need more sun,_ she thought. _Or maybe getting lectured by NERV Security could make _anyone_ tired, even me._

Well, whatever. She'd get a good night's sleep and feel better in the morning, she felt sure.

Unfortunately, that still didn't do anything to solve the problem she'd been grappling with for a week now. Should she strive to be the person that Jor-El had wanted his son—her biological father—to be? The person that Hamilton, and so many others, thought she already was?

Was she even capable of being that person?

She saw a little glitter from her small desk just as she started pondering the question again. Frowning, she went over to it and picked up the object that she found there.

It was a ring that seemed, paradoxically, familiar and unfamiliar at once. It looked like it was made of gold, and on the top was a symbol with a yellow "L" and what appeared to be a shooting star on a black background.

Asuka felt certain that she'd never seen it before, and yet the thing triggered a powerful emotional response within her. Suddenly, she felt a good deal less stifled by everyone's expectations and images of Power Girl, yet also far more confident in her ability to live up to those expectations.

"Maybe I could try it," she said softly to herself, "being the big damn hero for real."

She put the ring back down and went to her closet. She withdrew the blankets that Hamilton had given her and unfurled the blue one, looking at the five-pointed S-shield emblazoned in the center of the fabric.

"Yeah, maybe I can."

* * *

Several kilometers away from the Katsuragi apartment, a man in his mid thirties was heading for a Geofront access to point, on his way to NERV headquarters.

Ryo Joshuyo was hardly an extraordinary individual, though, despite the place where he worked. Even a secretive, paramilitary organization like NERV needed janitors, after all, and Joshuyo was one such person.

Indeed, Joshuyo had very little in the way of noteworthy characteristics. He was a very plain looking man, with a less than average intellect, and not the most diligent of workers. He was unmarried, never having been very good at charming women. All his life, he'd been told that he was nobody special and that he'd never amount to anything.

His job was to the keep the part of the base where Technical Division Three worked clean and tidy.

Truly, there was little worth mentioning about Ryo Joshuyo, except for one small detail: he loved to gamble. It was what he spent nearly all of his free time doing.

Unfortunately for Ryo, he was no better at gambling than he'd been at sports or academics when was still in school. He'd gradually acquired a gambling debt to the tune of 100,000 yen, which was no small sum for someone with his meager salary.

In order to pay off this staggering amount, he'd unwisely decided to take a loan from the yakuza.

So he was understandably not pleased when he saw Yuuto, a yakuza enforcer, approach him before he was within sight of the Geofront access point.

"H-Hey, Yuuto-kun," Ryo greeted the other man with forced cheerfulness. "Nice night, isn't it?"

Yuuto didn't bother to reply. Instead, he grabbed two handfuls of the pale blue jumpsuit that Ryo wore to work and shoved him up against a nearby wall, hard. "Where's the money?" he demanded.

"I…I'll have it soon," Ryo promised.

Yuuto pulled Ryo away from the wall, then slammed him into it again. "Not good enough. That's what you told me last week."

"It's true," Ryo said. "You see, I got it all figured out."

Yuuto smirked derisively. "Really?" he asked.

Ryo nodded earnestly. "Yeah, yeah!" he said. "I overheard a buncha the scientists at NERV talking, you see? Apparently, they found this sample of some new chemical. Never seen anything like it before. It has some weird properties—something about energy absorption—and they say that any pharmaceutical or chemical company would pay through the nose for it. So I figure we can steal it. Then not only do I settle my debt, but we both get rich."

The promise of riches beyond the 100,000 yen that was owed to him intrigued Yuuto's greed. He released his hold on Ryo. "When do we do this?" he demanded.

"They're planning on upgrading Tech Div Three's security system in a couple of weeks," Ryo said. "We'll make our move in between, while everything's off line."

"This better work," Yuuto warned. "Because if it doesn't…" he made a slow, cutting motion across Ryo's throat, the meaning of which was impossible to misinterpret.

"It'll work, it'll work!" Ryo said earnestly. "Oh, thanks a lot for giving me some extra time!"

"Yeah, yeah," Yuuto grunted. "Save it. I don't want your gratitude, you useless parasite."

* * *

**Author's Notes:** You know, I'm pretty sure somebody asked me a while ago if the Legion was going to show up. I'm also pretty sure that I said that they wouldn't be putting in an appearance, because I think they're lame. I guess I have some explaining to do.

First of all, let me say I wasn't lying when I said that. At the time I had no plans to include the Legion, and the fact is, I _do_ think they're lame. Their "big three" would be decidedly second tier in the present day DCU, and the organization is home to some exceedingly lame heroes (Shrinking Violet, Triplica, and Bouncing Boy, to name a few). And the idea for the Legion was spawned from the notion that Superboy felt lonely and should have some super buddies to play with, which in itself always struck me as pretty corny. It felt weird having the Legionnaires defeat the New Gods, and you'll notice that they only did so after Asuka had gone ten rounds with them. And she still needed to pull Cosmic Boy's fat out of the fryer.

So why did I include the Legion, considering I have a less than glowing opinion of the group? Well, for one thing, they're part of the Superman mythos, no one can really debate that. And more importantly, they're part of the tale of Superman when he was first starting out. Also, my opinion of the Legion warmed, ironically, from reading an issue of JSA. Several JLA members made a guest appearance, and Superman recounted one of his adventures with the Legion. When Batman basically scoffed at the Legionnaires' willingness to sacrifice their lives in order to resurrect Lightning Lad, saying "You were kids" Superman countered with the predictable but still awesome line "No, we were Legion."

Also, it gave me the chance to bring the New Gods of Apokolips in as the baddies from the future (usually this is Brainiac's job; he fulfilled the role in the Legion episodes of both STAS and _Smallville_, but I had just used Brainiac). How could I pass up the chance to bring in some of Jack "the King" Kirby's creations?

Then, of course, there was the fact that Asuka needs every nudge in the direction of heroism that she can get. Speaking of Asuka, I'm not quite sure whether her brooding was out of character or just indicative of the fact that beneath all her bluster and bravado lies a teenager who's just as confused about who she is as anybody at that age. I'd like to think it's the latter, but I suppose the final judgment rests with you, dear readers.

Anyway, I hope this chapter was _too_ confusing, with enemies Asuka hasn't even made yet popping in from the future and everything. And I hope you come back for the next chapter, when a new supervillian will emerge. Superman fans already know which one, I'm sure.

As always, thanks to my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta reader as well.

* * *

Omakes

Tryouts for _what_?

"Hey, class rep, do you know why the Devil demanded we come here?" Kensuke asked, looking around the schoolyard.

As it was a Sunday, the place was empty save for himself and Hikari.

"Don't call my friend names, stooge," the pig-tailed class representative said sternly. "And to answer your question, no, I don't know why she asked us to come here."

"Well, I hope this doesn't take too long," Kensuke huffed. "I have better things to do than wait here all day."

Hikari was about to make some kind of reply, when Asuka arrived at the schoolyard, accompanied by the author, who was holding a flat, rectangular box covered in dark blue velvet.

"Hi, Hikari, hello stooge," Asuka greeted the two of them. "Glad you could make it."

The two teens eyed Mike313 warily. The presence of the author on this side of the fourth wall usually meant something hilarious but painful was approaching.

"So what's this all about, Asuka?" Hikari asked.

"Well, it's come to Mike's attention that this fic utterly lacks any kind of real Jimmy Olsen analogue," Asuka said. "And he wants one of you to fulfill the role."

Hikari and Kensuke traded a look. "Why would we want to do that?" Kensuke asked.

"Because, the one who gets chosen will get this," Mike said, opening the small box he was holding and revealing a very, very nice watch. "This baby can emit and signal that only Asuka (and possibly dogs, I'm not really sure) can hear, giving you the ability to summon the Girl of Steel whenever you're in danger. It also has a supercomputer inside it, just like the watch in _All Star Superman_ did."

"Okay…I'm impressed," Kensuke said.

"Much as I hate to admit it, so am I," Hikari agreed.

"Wonderful," Mike said. "Then it's settled. Both of you plead your case as to why you're the best fit to be the Jimmy Olsen character, and the winner gets the watch. Kensuke, you start."

"Oh, come on, how could anybody possibly fulfill this role?" Kensuke asked. "Jimmy Olsen's a photographer, and one of my biggest character traits is that I'm _always_ carrying a camera around. Jimmy Olsen's the kind of losery sidekick to Superman, and I'm the kind of losery sidekick to Shinji! _And_ I even look a little like him. I've got the freckles, at least."

"I've got freckles, too!" Hikari said. "And a few chapter's back, Asuka described me as 'Power Girl's pal'! Everybody knows that Jimmy Olsen was 'Superman's pal'! So clearly, _I_ should get the cool watch!"

Asuka turned to the author. "Your decision?"

"Sorry, Hikari, but as fond of you as I am, Kensuke's just more suited for this one," Mike said, handing the otaku the watch.  
"Yatta!" Kensuke cheered.

"Oh, just so you know, stooge," Asuka said, leaning in close to Kensuke and glowering at him dangerously. "I find the sound that watch makes to be _extremely_ annoying. So I'd _strongly_ advise you don't turn on that signal without a _very_ good reason. Or _else_." She said, her blue eyes changing to a menacing, fiery orange.

Kensuke swallowed. "Y-Yes, ma'am," he said.

"Good," Asuka said, drawing back from him and allowing her eyes to return to their normal hue. "Say, Hikari, wanna hang out at the mall?"

"Sure," the class rep said.

The two girls cheerfully walked off, leaving Kensuke alone with the author. The otaku gave Mike313 a betrayed look.

"What?" the writer said defensively. "Did you _really_ think being Jimmy Olsen would be all that great?"

* * *

Blackmail, thy name is idiocy

"What a day," Asuka grumbled to herself as she shuffled into the apartment that evening.

Only to be unpleasantly surprised to find stooge number one, a.k.a. Toji Suzuhara waiting in the kitchen.

"Hello, Red," he said, as though he had as much right to be there as she did.

"Shut up, stooge," she ordered. "I'm not in the mood to deal with you. If you're looking for Shinji, he's probably in his room."

"I actually came to see you," he said.

"Too bad," she replied, heading for her room.

"I wouldn't ignore me if I were you…Power Girl."

_That_ stopped her cold. She turned and glared at him. "How do you know?"

"Let's just say that when that cute blonde from the future went around wiping everybody's memories, a little green Martian shielded my mind," Toji said.

"Huh?"

"Look, does it really matter how I know?" Toji asked smugly. "The fact is that unless you want everyone to know who Power Girl is, you'll have to do exactly what I say."

"Which is?" she asked through clenched teeth.

Toji withdrew a very minimal white bikini from somewhere and held it up. "Tomorrow after school, you're going to put this on, along with your mask, cape, and that wig you wear. Then you're going to model while Kensuke takes pictures, and the two of us are going to become _obscenely_ rich."

To the jock's surprise, Asuka's response was to grin. "What…?" he stammered.

"Oh, stooge, you don't know much I've been waiting for a good excuse to _hurt_ you," she said happily, cracking her knuckles.

"Crap," Toji said.

* * *

Inside his room, Shinji winced as he started hearing a series of very loud crashes. But he wasn't stupid enough to go out there. Oh no. He cracked the volume on his SDAT as high as it would go and tried to pretend nothing was happening.

It didn't work very well. He could still hear the noise coming from the kitchen.

"I _told_ Toji it was a stupid plan," Shinji said to himself.

The door to his room slid open, allowing a certain water fowl entry. Pen-Pen shut the door after himself and then made his way to Shinji's bed. The penguin, not normally a particularly touchy or affectionate animal, sat right next to Shinji and began to shiver.

"Yeah, I'm a little scared, too, boy," Shinji said, petting the bird comfortingly. "But look on the plus side: after this stunt of Toji's, I'm going to look _really_ good in comparison!"


	9. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC Comics or anything associated with it, and I am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Eight:** New Attitude, New Look

Kiku Arai had never been so scared before at any time in his sixteen years of life. Her heart was pounding, she could feel sweat pouring down the back of her neck despite the coolness of the night, and she was honestly afraid that she was going to lose control of her bladder at any moment now.

Having a man point a gun in your face and then demand that you go into an alley with him could do that to you.

"Whatcha' got there, pretty lady?" the thug holding the gun demanded, reaching out for the large stack of papers in her arms.

"J-Just fliers," Kiku said, and didn't resist when the man snatched one to have a look for himself.

"A cat?" the thug asked incredulously after having a look at the small poster.

"S-She's been missing for over a month now," Kiku explained, voice trembling. "Megumi's n-never stayed out that long be—"

The young man interrupted her by lashing out with his free hand, savagely smacking the papers she held and sending them scattering into the air. Kiku let out a small, strangled cry.

"Shut up!" the man hissed, brandishing his gun around, and Kiku instantly fell silent. "Now, give me all your money."

"Okay, okay," Kiku said, scrambling to grab her wallet. "Just don't hurt me, please."

He smiled, displaying a mouthful of yellow teeth. "Well now, what I do next depends on whether or not I like the present you have for me," he said, indicating the wallet. "If I think it's not enough, maybe I'll just take…something else."

Kiku's blood turned to ice water in her veins. The man's tone made it abundantly clear what he'd do if he felt her monetary offering wasn't enough.

And she only had a hundred yen in her wallet, not exactly a princely sum.

_Maybe he'd take my earrings?_ She thought, her mind whirling desperately for something else she could offer him.

Of course, her earrings were cheap; the stones in them were glass, but with luck, he'd have no way of realizing that until he tried to pawn them.

"Well, c'mon!" the mugger demanded after she had hesitated for just a moment too long.

"Hey, didn't anybody ever teach you to treat women with respect?" a new voice sounded from the mouth of the alley.

The voice was feminine but utterly without any trace of the fear that Kiku was feeling. However, the mugger didn't seem very concerned; he turned to look at the newcomer. In the darkness of the night, she was little more than an outline, a faint girl shape in the gloom.

She looked smaller than Kiku herself, the teenage girl noted with trepidation, her hopes for rescue sinking.

Then the new girl came closer, walking into the light. Kiku's heart leapt, and the mugger's face quickly went ash gray.

The new girl was clad in a red cape, mask, and white leotard which the people of Tokyo-3 had become very familiar with.

"Power Girl," the mugger whispered, then cursed.

The man was quick, and smart, so far as petty thieves went. He didn't waste time or ammunition firing his weapon at the Girl of Steel. Instead, he realized almost immediately that the only chance he had of making the masked superwoman back off was to threaten the girl he _could_ hurt.

He quickly turned, pointing his gun directly at Kiku again.

Or at least, he tried to point his gun directly at her. The second he started to turn the firearm away from Power Girl, she began a blur of red and white. To the mugger, she seemed to just materialize from thin air in between himself and Kiku.

Surprised, he let out a small cry and reflexively pulled the trigger. The noise was deafening inside the cramped alleyway.

Kiku released a small shriek, the already terrified girl unable to keep herself from keeping quiet as the frightening sound filled her ears.

For just a moment, one horrible, heart-pounding moment, the sixteen-year-old girl somehow managed to forget everything she knew about Power Girl, and she believed that the superwoman would die for trying to help her.

From her position behind Power Girl, Kiku didn't see the slug that erupted from the barrel of the mugger's weapon strike the Girl of Steel right between the eyes. She didn't see the bullet crumple up upon impact like an empty soda can, and she didn't see how the force of that impact failed to so much as blanch Power Girl's skin.

But when the bullet fell to the ground, landing with the distinctive _tink!_ of metal hitting pavement, Kiku's shoulders slumped in relief.

Unsurprisingly, the mugger was feeling anything _but_ relief at the moment. He released a sort of strangled cry of surprise and terror. Then, acting out of sheer desperation, he reversed his grip on his weapon, grabbing the barrel, and struck the blond superwoman in the head as hard as he could with the butt of his pistol.

There was a loud thump that made Kiku wince, but Power Girl's only response was to sigh in annoyance. The thug moved to hit her again, but the blond superwoman reached out, her movements inhumanly quick, and almost casually wrenched the weapon from his grasp. Then she squeezed down on it, the metal contorting in her gloved hand like it was no firmer than wet clay, leaving the gun quite worthless.

"Honestly, why do you people do that?" she demanded of the mugger, exasperation coloring her voice. "You must be the tenth loser to try that. Do really think pistol whipping me is going to do anything when the _bullets_ bounce off?"

The mugger, unsurprisingly, didn't bother to respond. Instead, he spun on his heel and tried to run.

This went about as well for him as was to be expected. Power Girl casually reached out and grabbed hold of his collar. He let out a strangled "_hurk!"_ as he was abruptly brought to a dead stop.

The blond superwoman turned to Kiku. "Excuse me for a moment," she said, then casually ripped a broken gutter pipe from the wall of one of the two buildings which formed the alley. She easily bent it around the futilely struggling mugger, immobilizing him. "There, that ought to hold him until the police can scoop him up." She said, allowing her feet to drift back to the ground. Kiku hadn't noticed she'd been hovering until that moment.

The high school girl blinked a few times. She was aware that she should say something, express her gratitude. Except she found there was only one thing she could say.

"Wow."

The Girl of Steel grinned. "You okay? He didn't hurt you before I showed up, did he?"

"N-no," Kiku replied, still not quite over what had happened.

Now that her savior was on the ground, Kiku was finally able to realize that the young superwoman was actually a good bit shorter than she was. Power Girl might actually be a junior high school student.

That just added to the sense of surrealism that the whole event had taken on in the older girl's mind; Kiku was not as fanatically obsessed with popularity and status as some girls her age, but she wouldn't normally associate with kids at the junior high school level. Indeed, normally, she might go so far as to try and avoid being seen in the company of one.

And now she had just been rescued by one.

Of course, it was needless to say that, even if she was as young as Kiku suspected, Power Girl was no ordinary junior high school student.

"What were you doing out here, anyway?" Power Girl asked. "This isn't a good part of the city to be in at night."

"Oh," Kiku suddenly felt like the biggest moron on the face of the Earth; she could feel her face flush. "My cat is missing. I was putting up posters asking for its return," she gestured to the pile of papers that the mugger had scattered to the ground, "and I guess I just sort of lost track of time and where I was exactly."

"What's your cat's name?" Power Girl asked.

Kiku blinked stupidly for a second. Power Girl, the Girl of Steel, wasn't _actually_ going to spend time finding her lost cat, would she?

"Uh, his name's Streaky," she answered. "He has orange fur with a lighter streak running down his body. Oh, and he wears a blue collar."

Power Girl turned her head this way and that for a few seconds, and Kiku soon became confused. There wasn't anything to look at besides the uninteresting walls of the alleyway.

The blonde turned back to Kiku. "Are you afraid of heights?" she asked abruptly.

Kiku blinked. "No, why do you—_whoa!_"

The answer to the question she didn't get to ask became obvious as Power Girl quickly got behind her, took a firm grip on her waist, and then took off into the air. Kiku released a yelp of surprise, but it quickly transformed into a bubble of laughter.

"Okay, _this_ is really cool," she said, looking down at the street below them.

"One of the best parts of the job," Power Girl agreed.

The Girl of Steel flew them across a few city blocks before setting down for a landing, all too soon in Kiku's opinion. They landed in an alleyway very similar to the one they'd just left, except…

"Meow."

"Streaky?" Kiku asked hopefully.

"Meow!" The tabby cat emerged from a large cardboard box, its eyes shining in the night.

"Streaky!" Kiku exclaimed joyously.

The feline released another enthusiastic meow and ran toward its owner, jumping into Kiku's arms.

"Thank you," Kiku said to Power Girl, clutching the cat to her chest. "I might never have found him without your help."

"Ah, it was nothing," the superwoman replied, though her body language said she was extremely pleased with herself; she was all but buffing her nails against the material of her leotard. "You want me to take you home? We're still not in a great part of the city."

Kiku was tempted to go for another flight, but taking up any more of the Girl of Steel's time just seemed like it would be selfish. Besides, she didn't think Streaky would react well to the experience.

"Thanks, but I should be fine now that I'm not just wandering around aimlessly while I put up posters," she said. "Uh, do I need to call the police about that mugger?" she asked.

"Eh, don't bother," Power Girl replied. "I'd bet anything that he bought that gun illegally. That'll be enough to get him locked up without you getting involved."

"Thanks," Kiku said. "You know, you're a lot more down to earth than I'd heard."

Power Girl blinked. "Thanks, I think."

"Oh, no, I didn't mean to say that I'd heard anything bad about you or anything!" Kiku said hurriedly, blushing at the way she'd just stuck her foot into her mouth. "I just…I mean…well, you can fly—"

Abruptly realizing how stupid that last bit sounded, Kiku snapped her mouth shut. She felt like smacking herself; she hadn't stammered like that since last year when she'd blundered into a conversation with her crush.

Power Girl smirked and crossed her arms over her chest. "And someone who can fly can't be down to earth?" she asked.

"No! I didn't mean that. I just meant…" Kiku cut herself off, realizing that she should probably just quit while she was behind. So instead of trying to explain herself, she bowed to the younger girl. "Thank you again for rescuing me."

"Welcome," Power Girl replied cheerfully.

And with that the sixteen-year-old girl left, on her way home with her beloved pet in her arms, and now with a story to tell. Power Girl smiled and flew up into the air.

A few blocks away, the would-be mugger just sat where he was and cursed his ill fortune.

* * *

Upon parting ways with the girl and her cat, Power Girl found a cop patrolling the city and casually informed him where he could find a suspicious man restrained in an alleyway, along with an illegal firearm that had his prints all over it. The policeman was briefly shocked at her sudden appearance, but he quickly got over it and took off with obvious excitement.

Probably because Power Girl had neglected to mention the damage she'd done to the gun, or the method she'd used for restraining him. Both issues would make it quite impossible for the cop to claim credit for the capture.

These tasks done, the Girl of Steel flew high above the city, deciding to check up on Kiku to make sure she hadn't run into any additional trouble on her way home. Locating the older girl was an easy task with her superhuman senses, and Power Girl was pleased to find that Kiku was still quite unmolested. The older teen was petting and nuzzling the tabby cat she held with obvious affection, and the feline was purring loudly in response. Kiku was telling the cat it shouldn't have run off in a tone that was so sweet and mild that the tabby couldn't possibly have any idea it was being scolded. She was also telling the feline about how jealous her friends would be of her, because she'd gotten to fly with Power Girl.

The Girl of Steel felt a pleasantly warm sensation in her chest, but it was accompanied by a little twist of guilt.

_A month ago, I would've just clocked that jerk and then been on my way,_ Power Girl thought, turning her attention away from Kiku as the older girl entered a better part of the city. _And I would've been ticked off about taking _that_ much time to help someone when there wasn't anybody with a camera around._

It made her burn with shame to think about it now, but she hadn't given a thought to the people she rescued until the day she'd spoken to Emil Hamilton. Until then, they were just means to an end, namely fame and popularity.

And as such, she'd prioritized situations that could've used help from the Girl of Steel according to how much publicity they'd likely garner for her.

Then she'd found that online message board upon returning from Germany, and she had read accounts of the people she'd helped. She'd made such a huge difference to so many, with a series of tasks that were easy for her, and rarely took her longer than ten minutes. And, as she'd just proved, only a couple of minutes extra could further make a difference. But there wasn't any benefit to _her_ if she spent those minutes, so it had never even occurred to her to do it, despite how trivial an effort it was for the Girl of Steel.

_And people call me things like "an angel come down from heaven to save us all." If only they knew,_ Power Girl mused.

Of course, that was a part of the reason why she'd decided to turn over a new leaf. She didn't want to feel like she was a fraud anymore, and she wanted to be the person Emil thought she already was. The hero Jor-El had expected his son to become.

She had already altered her activities, not just helping those she wouldn't have bothered with before, but making more time to go out as Power Girl. Still, she didn't quite feel like she was done yet.

_Speaking of which,_ she thought, checking her watch, _I should head back, if I want to work on that, and have time to catch a little sleep._

Altering her course, Power Girl flew back to the apartment building she currently called home and covertly entered through her bedroom window. Once inside, she quickly took a look around with her X-ray vision. Shinji was in his room, doing homework, while Misato and Pen-Pen sat in front of the TV, both of them drinking beer. There was no sign that anybody was going to come looking for her any time soon.

Reassured that her identity would remain secret for another day, Power Girl went over to her small desk and opened one of the drawers, withdrawing the ring with the L-emblem she had hidden inside.

The thing was an even bigger enigma than it had been the day she'd first found it sitting in her room; upon inspecting the thing with her X-ray vision, she'd discovered that it was definitely _not_ an ordinary piece of jewelry. Inside it laid the most advanced mechanisms and circuitry she'd ever seen, and Power Girl couldn't even guess at what it might be for.

Indeed, she would almost be willing to bet that _nobody_ on Earth would be able to guess at what its purpose might be. However, somebody must've made the thing, so it stood to reason that at least one person in the world understood it.

Power Girl had briefly considered the idea that it might be some leftover bit of technology from Brainiac's attack, but she'd quickly dismissed the notion based on gut instinct.

Whenever she looked at the ring, she felt confident for reasons she couldn't quite explain, and she felt like she was making the right choice by trying to be a real hero.

Finally done with her contemplation, Power Girl hid the ring once more, then changed out of her costume and into a pair of shorts and a simple T-shirt, becoming Asuka Langley Soryu once more. She carefully put her Power Girl duds at the back of her closet.

Then, from next to its hiding place, Asuka withdrew what would become her new costume.

Though she had grown somewhat attached to the white leotard, making a wardrobe change just felt right, like it would be the final step toward officially becoming a better hero, a true hero.

"That, and I want to display my heritage," Asuka mused aloud, looking at the S-shield on the piece of blue cloth that wasn't quite a shirt yet.

Unfortunately, crafting her new superwoman outfit from the baby blankets Hamilton had given her had proven itself a far more difficult task than she'd originally expected. Though Asuka had always considered herself more than a little talented, even before her superhuman abilities had started to show up, not to mention very well learned to boot, she had never bothered with sewing before.

Of course, she could have asked Hikari for help. Her friend certainly would have been able to teach her, but Hikari would've wanted to know why Asuka wanted to learn. And Asuka wasn't yet ready to tell her best friend her secret, nor was she willing to lie to the class rep; she had far too much respect for the freckled girl to do that.

So she had taught herself, using cloth she'd bought cheaply at a thrift store and instructions off the internet. It had been an exercise in trial and error (mostly errors, which had been so hideous Asuka had reduced them to ash with her heat vision, lest anyone else ever see her pathetic early attempts), but thanks to her super speed, it hadn't taken _that_ long for her to become a competent seamstress.

Then she'd finally started working on the Kryptonian fabric, and a whole _new_ set of problems had arisen. Asuka had remembered, of course, about how Hamilton had said that the fabric was extremely tough, and she'd purchased a pair of diamond-edged scissors at great expense…only to have them break the very first time she'd used them. In the end, she'd been forced to use her heat vision to cut the blankets to the right specifications.

Things hadn't gotten any easier once she was ready to start sewing everything together. Any needle caught between her incredible strength and the impervious alien cloth instantly bent; she had to force it through the tight weave of the fabric, and if she was off in the slightest, the needle was immediately ruined. She had broken dozens of needles already, and she would probably break dozens more before she was done.

"Still, I'm definitely getting there," she said, as she picked up her project and continued her work on it.

The sewing needle got caught in the tiny threads of one strand of the blue fabric, and before she had realized it the thing was bent at almost 90 degrees.

"Schisse," she cursed softly.

* * *

Emil Hamilton cursed loudly as the pain which was coursing through him finally subsided. With the acute agony no longer causing him to keep his whole body tense, he slumped in his chair as much as his bonds would allow, gasping desperately for breath.

"Really, doctor, you do understand that this doesn't need to go on for one more minute, don't you?" Chiron asked, sounding both bored and professional. "All you need to do is tell me what I want to know, and you can stop wasting our time."

Hamilton didn't answer right away, mostly because he knew that a new refusal would only bring more pain, and he knew what Chiron would do to him if he lied to the man again. Better to buy himself a few extra seconds by pretending he couldn't speak yet.

On one level, a very detached level, he almost had to admire the black suited man's skill. Chiron played good cop and bad cop at once without any sign of having difficulty with it. Not only that, but while he had suffered intense pain, Chiron had inflicted no serious injuries upon him. He wasn't even badly scarred, at least not yet.

Chiron was clearly a man who knew what he was doing when it came to "enhanced interrogation." He was a man who well skilled and confident when it came to his craft. A tiny part of Hamilton couldn't help but admire that.

The rest of the man, however, dearly wanted to crush Chiron's skull.

"C'mon, Doc," Chiron said eventually, "I know you can speak, so start talking so we can end this unpleasantness."

"I won't tell you who she is," Hamilton said.

"Okay," Chiron said.

Hamilton's head snapped up to look at the big man in the black suit. This was new.

"What?" he asked.

"I can live with that," Chiron said simply. "For now."

Hamilton's eyes narrowed warily as he waited for the other shoe to drop. "You can?"

"Oh, yes," Chiron said, suddenly sounding as perfectly reasonable as one could wish. "Why don't we talk about something else? Like that green crystal you were trying to hide when you were captured."

Hamilton immediately fell silent, the small spark of hope he'd dared to feel instantly going out.

"Come now, Doctor, surely you can tell me that," Chiron said.

Hamilton kept quiet, silently bracing himself for another round of torture.

But Chiron didn't resume that, instead continuing his new tact. "I'll you what, Doctor," he said. "You know that music we blast in here all night? If you tell me why you were trying to hide that crystal—and the truth, don't think I haven't figured out how to tell when you're lying by now—then I'll have it turned off tonight."

Hamilton's heart began to beat very quickly in his chest. It had been _so_ long since he'd been able to rest properly, and he was _so_ exhausted. Just one night of sound sleep would be nothing short of heavenly.

And he had long ago given up hope that Asuka would come to rescue him. He still had absolute faith that she _would_ if only she knew about his plight, but Chiron's claims that his cell was lead-lined and heavily soundproofed were apparently true. Not even Asuka's superhuman senses would allow her to realize his suffering.

_But I can't tell him about the kryptonite, can I?_ Hamilton thought.

"Come on, Doctor, one little piece of information," Chiron said, then gestured to the less than friendly looking implements he always brought with him. "Or we could just resume what we were doing earlier…"

Hamilton swallowed. He had been resigned to enduring further torture mere moments ago, but with the possibility of a reprieve, however brief, dangled before his face, it became impossible. He'd couldn't take any more, not when he was so weary, weak, and in so much pain already.

So, knowing he was going to hate himself in the future, but not having the strength to stop himself, Hamilton told Chiron what the kryptonite did.

"There, that wasn't so hard, Doctor," Chiron said cheerfully. "Hopefully, we can cooperate further in the future. Good night."

And with that, the man in the black suit gathered up his tools and departed, shutting the light off after himself.

The horrible, deafeningly loud music did not begin blasting from the speakers in the room as it had every other night, as Hamilton had been half convinced it would that night as well. The bearded man allowed himself to relax. He knew he should feel guilty; what he had just told Chiron could easily be used to endanger Asuka.

However, everything he had endured had simply put him in a place beyond things like guilt and shame, a place where he could only care about his most base needs. The guilt would come later, when his own circumstances were less wretched—assuming, of course, he came out of this ordeal alive.

For the moment, Hamilton just allowed his eyes to drift shut and was instantly asleep.

* * *

Ryu Joshuyo was as nervous as hell. Stealing from NERV's Technical Division Three had sounded like such a simple proposition when he'd been delivering it to Yuuto in order to save his own ass. But now that he was actually doing, with the full knowledge that he would probably end up answering to Commander Gendo Ikari himself if he was caught…

He couldn't help but shiver.

"You nervous, Joshuyo?" Yuuto asked.

The yakuza enforcer was wearing one of Ryo's light blue jumpsuits, which marked him as a member of the janitorial staff. It was all the disguise that the man needed, Ryo contemplated with a touch of bitterness, because the brass and the eggheads who worked for NERV never bothered with the "little people" much.

"I'm fine," Ryo reassured his partner in crime.

And probably his executioner, if this plan didn't work, and NERV didn't get them.

"You're sweating," Yuuto commented, glancing over at the janitor with the big gambling debt. "Geeze, if you're this freaked out, we could have tried to do this at night."

Ryo shook his head. "I don't have the graveyard shift today," he said. "If I use my ID to get into the base after five o'clock tonight, it'll send up a red flag with the computer that runs this place. And I don't know how long the security systems will be offline. We have to do this now."

"Well, you know this place better than me," Yuuto said, and if Ryo hadn't been so on edge, he might have noticed that the yakuza man was anxious himself. "You sure one of the eggheads won't come back from lunch early, though?"

_No, which is why we better make this quick,_ Ryo thought.

"It'll be fine," Ryo said.

"Why the hell is the lunch hour around here not until now, anyway?" Yuuto asked. "It's almost three o'clock for god's sakes. What's the hell's wrong with Ikari?"

"Too many things to count, if you believe what everybody says about him," Ryo replied with a shrug. As a lowly janitor, he had never met the Commander.

After what felt like hours of walking through the halls of NERV, Ryo and Yuuto finally arrived at the door to the correct laboratory. With shaking hands, Ryo swiped his card into the reader by the door. It opened with a soft hiss, and the two men walked inside.

"Well?" Yuuto asked. "Where the hell is it?"

Ryo silently pointed at a large glass canister, which was currently hooked up to some very high tech looking scanning device. Inside it was a softly luminescent pink liquid.

"Well don't just stand there," Yuuto hissed. "Go get it!"

"O-okay," Ryo replied, going over to the big gizmo that contained the chemical which would hopefully make them rich.

Looking at the contraption, Ryo felt like a certain whip-wielding movie explorer, ready to take the treasure from the temple of doom, but utterly certain that doing so would trigger a deadly booby trap. Despite knowing that NERV's state-of-the-art security system was currently non-functional in this part of the base, some part of Ryo just _couldn't_ believe that no alarm would sound if he took the thing out of its sophisticated cradle.

"Come on, Joshuyo," Yuuto said impatiently. "We don't have all day here."

Taking a deep breath, Ryo grabbed hold of it and, with one quick motion, pulled the large container out. Then he held his breath and waited for the klaxons to start going off.

Only none did. The lab was as still and as silent as it had been a minute ago. Ryo let out a deep breath.

"Come on, give me a hand here," he told Yuuto, struggling to hold the large glass container. "We can just take _this_ through the halls."

"Yeah, yeah, I hear ya," Yuuto replied, moving to help his accomplice.

Fortunately for them, Technical Division Three specialized in developing and producing chemicals for use in Project-E. As a result, there were always a few empty steel drums around the laboratory. The two quickly transferred the mysterious pink liquid into one of these, then loaded the drum onto a hand truck they'd brought with them. Once this task was accomplished, Ryo opened the door just enough to peek outside. Finding it empty, he signaled to Yuuto, and the two of them exited, now headed for the parking deck where their getaway vehicle waited.

"What did I tell you, Yuuto?" Ryo asked.

He was feeling a lot more confident now that the deed was done, and all they had to do was escape. If they encountered someone in the halls who asked him why he was moving the big barrel, he could easily say that he was running an errand for one scientist or another. And the eggheads still had most of their lunch hour before them; it should be a while before any of them returned to the lab and discovered the precious chemical missing.

"Yeah, yeah," Yuuto said. "This had stuff had better be as valuable as you say it is."

"It is, it is," Ryo reassured the yakuza man, feeling almost giddy with triumph and the prospect of great wealth. "You just wait. By this time next week, we're both gonna be rich."

He probably would have been less enthusiastic if he'd known that he and Yuuto weren't the only ones taking advantage of the lapse in NERV's security.

* * *

_One week earlier…_

The building where the group of men met did not look like the type of place you'd expect to find people plotting what could only reasonably be called terrorist actions. Indeed, some might even say that it was the exact _opposite_ of what such a place would look like.

Which wasn't really all that surprising, seeing how it was a church, a place of worship. It was not, however, a Christian church, even though it might have seemed to be at first glance. It also wasn't a Jewish temple, or an Islamic mosque. It wasn't a place where followers of Buddhism or Shinto gathered.

No, this place belonged to a smaller group than any of those faiths, known as the Light of the Divine. The members of the Light considered themselves the realists, the people who accepted what they could not change.

They accepted that mankind in general was an evil, base species, stained irreparably with sin, even if it was possible for individuals to live good and pious lives.

They accepted that the Almighty had decided to wipe their species from the face of the Earth so that He might start anew, and they accepted that the Angels were the instruments of His will.

They hoped and prayed that by doing everything they could to aid in the execution of His plan, they would gain a place in Heaven when the inevitable Armageddon came at last. It was a desperate hope, a real Hail Mary of a play—no pun intended—but it was all they could do in the eleventh hour of humanity's existence.

Which was why they met in the basement of their place of worship, to plan for their latest strike against NERV, an organization that, in their collective opinion, epitomized the arrogance of man.

"Welcome, brothers and sisters," the High Apostle, leader of this chapter of the cult, greeted the handful of the Light's most faithful members. "I am pleased to see that you could make it."

There were grins from the white robed-cultists. Being selected for such a high level mission was such a great honor that none of them would have missed the meeting for the world.

"Very soon, we will be utilizing a brief window of opportunity to strike a fierce blow against NERV," the High Apostle said, "which will make the people of this city and the world see them for the fools they truly are. However, before we get into the details of that, I'd like to introduce you all to one of our newest and most potentially useful converts. This is Dr. Jiro Akiyama, soon to be formally of NERV."

A thin man with an equally thin mustache stepped forward, wearing the robes of a newly initiated member of the Light. "Thank you, High Apostle. I am honored to be of use to the cause."

The High Apostle merely nodded and gestured for him to go on. Akiyama turned to face his new brethren and began without preamble. "One week from now, NERV will deactivate the security system in the part of their base that houses Technical Division Three to allow for upgrades," he said. "Both the esteemed High Apostle here and the Prophet have agreed that we must take advantage of our enemy's weakness."

"How?" a particularly excited member asked, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet with eagerness. "Will we be able to sabotage the Evangelions, or strike the pilots?"

Most of the other faithful were waiting with a similar level of enthusiasm, even if they were less obvious about it. Many of the Light of the Divine's plans to speed the arrival of Judgment Day had been thwarted by the mere presence of Power Girl and Wonder Girl in the city; the damnable superwomen would doubtlessly ruin their attempts. They were all eager enough to be able to do something that they were willing to overlook the possibility that the NERV scientist turned faithful follower of the Light's ways was actually a double agent.

"Unfortunately, we won't be able to attack the enemies of God so directly," Akiyama said. "Tech Division Three isn't that important to NERV, nor is their place in the structure anywhere near the Evangelion cages. However, like all the Technical Divisions, they do have something we can use: a MAGI access terminal."

"Isn't every computer on that base networked into that thing?" asked Isao, one of the Light's more computer savvy members.

"That's correct, but certain high level commands can only be given from certain, special terminals," Akiyama explained. "And we happen to be in luck. Dr. Akagi, whose access codes are second only to those of the Commanders, is lazy when it comes to this sort of thing. She likes to leave herself logged into the MAGI access terminals in the various Technical Divisions, rather than going to trouble of logging in and out all the time. An understandable urge, considering her passwords are about fifty characters long, but it will be NERV's downfall."

"So you can just waltz in there and play the supercomputer that runs NERV like a fiddle?" Isao asked, frowning.

"Not quite," Akiyama said. "You see, the reason _why_ Akagi feels safe leaving herself logged in at these important terminals is because NERV posts security guards by every one. We'll have to overpower them, and it's unlikely that no one will realize what we've done. The access terminal isn't in a secluded area. And, of course, once we do anything that raises a red flag, NERV will try and lock us out of the system."

Isao looked more skeptical than ever. "So we won't have long. What do you propose we do with our two minutes of access?"

Akiyama smiled darkly. "The people and the government are already somewhat distrustful of NERV," he said. "If they strike at innocents directly, the government _will_ get involved, and their interference might cause enough chaos for NERV to allow God's Messengers of Death to triumph."

"…go on," Isao said.

* * *

_Present Day…_

Isao glanced around the corner, at the pair of NERV security personnel who were guarding Tech Div Three's MAGI access terminal. Both men were wearing red berets, holding semiautomatic weapons, and just generally looking very much like professional soldiers.

All in all, Isao saw no reason to doubt Akiyama's claim that NERV security wasn't anything like the band of thugs in suits that reputedly made up Section Two.

However, Isao had faith. Akiyama had managed to sneak several other members of the Light of the Divine into the base, thanks to the lapse in security and some duplicates of the tan uniforms which were ubiquitous within NERV. They had even managed to smuggle weapons in with them.

Akiyama nodded to his cohorts. As one, they all withdrew large brass pins crafted in the shape of their order's emblem: a yellow flame with lines of light radiating out from it. Then, the scientist rounded the corner.

The guards didn't notice the pin, perhaps having grown lax due to their boring post, as well as disarmed by the familiar face.

"Hello, Dr. Akiyama," one of them greeted. "What can we do for you?"

"Die," the scientist turned cultist answered simply, withdrawing the pistol the Light had provided him with and shooting one of the security personnel.

The weapon had a silencer on it, so the bullet emerged with an unimpressive _pfft_ sound, almost like that of compressed air leaving a vessel; however, it was no less deadly for it. The guard gasped as the round slammed into his chest, briefly staggering before he fell to the floor. The front his shirt was quickly becoming soaked with blood, and it was obvious that he had mere minutes to live, if that.

Akiyama instantly moved to shoot the other man, which a man with more experience using firearms could've done easily. For all his training, the guard was so shocked at the scientist's actions that he hesitated for a few crucial moments.

However, Akiyama had never fired a gun before that day. The recoil had caught him by surprise, and it was with an unsteady hand that he took aim once more.

Despite being at nearly point blank range, the scientist's second shot missed, slamming into the wall to the left of the guard.

And the sound of the bullet striking the concrete was all it took to thoroughly knock the guard from his stunned stupor. He quickly raised his own weapon and sprayed bullets in Akiyama's direction. The traitorous scientist let out a cry as blood flew, and he collapsed once the assault had ended, dead before he hit the floor.

Then the other members of the Light emerged, their own weapons blazing, determined not to let their brother's sacrifice be in vain.

Cursing, the guard dropped down to a knee and opened fire, holding his weapon in one hand. With the other, he grabbed his walkie-talkie and depressed the button on the side.

"Code red!" he yelled. "Code red! I—"

A bullet pierced his shoulder then, followed quickly by another in the arm. The walkie-talkie fell from his suddenly numb fingers.

The third bullet found his head, and the terminal was the Light of the Divine's to use, at least for a moment.

* * *

Ryo and Yuuto were about halfway to the parking deck when the klaxons started to blare. The two men exchanged a look, their faces going pale as they both understandably jumped to conclusion that someone had noticed the absence of the chemical they'd pilfered.

Quickly reaching a silent agreement, the two of them broke out into a run.

Of course, as no one was actually after them yet, this move was actually unwise in the extreme. However, they almost escaped all punishment for this serious error in judgment.

Almost

Right by the entrance to the parking deck, the two of them happened to cross paths with a member of NERV's security force. The man was on his way to assist in retaking the MAGI access terminal from the cultists who had somehow managed to sneak onto the base, and he never would have given the two men in the jumpsuits of the base's janitorial staff, had they not been running at full tilt.

As it was, their frantic pace made him just suspicious enough to challenge them. "You two, stop!" he ordered.

It was at this point that the janitor and the yakuza enforcer dressed like a janitor decided to compound their earlier mistake by making another one.

They _could_ have just come to a halt and told the NERV security guard that they'd been frightened by the alarm. The guard, impatient to confirm that nothing was amiss so he could be on his way, would have easily swallowed this excuse.

Instead, they chose to start running even faster, quickly entering the parking deck. Finally realizing that he was _not_ dealing with a couple of civilians who'd been spooked, but that there was something seriously wrong with this picture, the guard ran after them.

"_Stop!_" he shouted.

Needless to say, the two thieves failed to obey the command. In response, the guard fired a brief burst from his weapon, though they were warning shots and came nowhere near striking the fleeing criminals.

Even as he kept running, Yuuto reached a hand into one of his jumpsuit's large pockets and withdrew a pistol. He fired two rounds back at the guard. He missed, but not by much; the yakuza enforcer didn't believe in warning shots.

Ryo swore. "Are you insane? What the hell did you bring the piece for?"

"So I could save our asses if _this_ happened!" Yuuto retorted, clearly not pleased at being questioned by the usually sniveling janitor.

"You're going to get us put away for good," Ryo moaned.

"The hell I am!" Yuuto retorted. "You can go quietly if you want, but I'm not going to jail today!"

Ryo just groaned, wondering how the hell he was going to get out of this mess without a hole in his head or a one way ticket to the nearest prison.

However, despite his pessimism, the two of them made it to the pickup truck that was to be their getaway vehicle with minimal difficulty. The base's security force was far too preoccupied with the cultists to send any backup to the lone man chasing after them, and he'd become far more cautious with the discovery that Yuuto had a gun.

"Come on, come on, move!" the yakuza enforcer shouted at Ryo, heading for the driver's side door of the truck.

With another moan of despair, Ryo did as he was told, hoisting the metal drum with the precious liquid inside of it into the back of the truck. Yuuto had already started the engine, and Ryo had no choice but to remain in the back, barely having enough time to close the door to the flatbed.

With a screech of tires, the pickup backed out of its parking space and went peeling through the parking garage. Ryo was nearly thrown out of the back.

"Jesus, Yuuto!" he shouted. "Slow down!"

The yakuza enforcer, intent on making good their escape, completely ignored him. The tore past the lone security guard at dangerous speeds, and though the man tried to shoot out their tires, he never had any real chance of succeeding.

"Yuuto! Yuuto, _slow down!_" Ryo begged, holding on for dear life and casting quick, wary glances at the metal drum, which he hadn't had a chance to tie down at all.

But the yakuza enforcer was too intent on escape to heed his accomplice. He continued to drive at a reckless pace through the twists and turns of the parking deck, and only the lack of other cars moving about prevented a catastrophic collision from occurring right then and there.

By some miracle, the truck reached the exit to the parking deck without incident, but Yuuto's impatience still did not wane. There was a barrier by the exit. It was nothing more than a simple wooden stick painted with orange and white stripes, the kind one might find in any number of parking decks and at railroad intersections. The thing was hooked up to a motion sensor and would rise automatically for any vehicle on its way out.

But Yuuto was in too much of a hurry to wait for it. He plowed right through the thing.

And that was where things really started going to hell. The jolt from the impact caused the unsecured barrel to fall over at last, and the top came off immediately. The pink liquid inside came pouring out, splashing all over the flatbed of the truck.

Ryo Joshuyo screamed in agony as the stuff gushed over him, hissing maliciously as it made contact with his skin and clothes. Every nerve in his body was alight with pain; the liquid burned, and it was _all over_ him. His entire form had been painted an evil shade of dark pink by the stuff, so that he looked more like a parody of a human being than a real person.

"Yuuto!" he begged, "Yuuto, _please_! Please, stop! Help me!"

Hearing a distinct change in his accomplice's tone, and not quite in so much of a panic now that they'd finally escaped the base, the yakuza enforcer spared a moment to glance at the rearview mirror.

The image of a hand dripping with pink chemicals caused his eyes to widen in horror.

"_Yuuto!_" Ryo cried, somehow managing to lurch toward the front of the truck.

By now, the truck had reached a long, empty stretch of road within the Geofront, and they were nearing a sharp turn. Yuuto pressed down on the accelerator and took that turn as quickly as he dared, the truck's tires screeching and smoking in protest.

The laws of physics being what they were, the results of this maneuver were predictable. Ryo was flung from the back of the truck and came down for a hard and very unpleasant landing by the side of the road. By some miracle he didn't break anything upon impact, but this was small comfort to the man, who was already in so much agony that he probably wouldn't have even noticed the additional pain.

To make his situation even worse, the road had been made right next to a fast moving stream that ran off from the lake at the center of the Geofront floor. Ryo tumbled down the bank and into the drink, the water washing away some of the chemicals he'd just been bathed in. Some, but not all. His whole body remained an unnatural shade of dark pink.

"Yuuto, help!" he begged, flailing wildly in the cold water. "I can't swim! Help me!"

But the yakuza enforcer never slowed down. The hapless Ryo Joshuyo was soon swept away by the swift current, and he came very close to drowning. He would eventually wash up, unconscious and half dead, on the bank of the stream, near the edge of the Geofront and far from NERV headquarters. It was an isolated spot where NERV would never find him, even if they'd known to look for him in the Geofront.

Not that NERV was the least bit concerned with the likes of Ryo Joshuyo at the moment. They had bigger problems to worry about.

* * *

"What the hell is going on?" Fuyutski demanded over the wailing of the alarms inside the command center. "And someone turn off that damn noise!"

"Intruders have infiltrated Tech Division Three, sir!" Aoba said. "They've taken the area by the MAGI access panel."

"Security is preparing to retake it, but the intruders are heavily armed," Hyuga added. "They're reporting that it'll take a few minutes to get ready to strike without the situation turning into a complete bloodbath!"

"Sir, it seems that Dr. Akagi is logged in at that terminal," Maya reported urgently.

The Vice Commander swore, the significance of that information not escaping him. He knew only too well how much access Akagi had to the high level commands and functions in the MAGI.

"Lock them out of the system!" he barked. "I don't care how you do it, just do it now!"

"Already on it, sir," Maya replied, her fingers flying over her keyboard.

"Too late!" Aoba exclaimed. "They've ordered one of the city's missile batteries to fire!"

The image on the command center's main screen suddenly changed to a view of the battery in question. The thing was one of the few faux skyscrapers that didn't retract into the ground when the city was in its peacetime formation. The old Vice Commander watched with growing horror as the heavy doors which usually kept the missile tubes on the thing firmly shut slid out of place. The intruders were going to launch every bit of ordnance that they could.

"Override it! Stop those missiles!" The Vice Commander yelled.

"I'm sorry, sir, but that can't be done," Hyuga said quietly.

"Then use another battery to destroy that one!" Fuyutski snapped, his hand clenching into a fist. "Just keep it from—"

A barrage of missiles burst forth from the huge turret, leaving trails of smoke in their wake. The former professor could do nothing but watch as they soared off in all directions to deliver their deadly payloads upon the people they'd been built to defend.

"Dear God in Heaven…" Fuyutski breathed in despair.

* * *

While all this madness was playing out in the Geofront, the life of the city above it was proceeding as normal, with the inhabitants of Tokyo-3 blissfully unaware of what was going on in NERV headquarters.

Or at least, most of them were. Asuka and Shinji were just leaving Tokyo-3 Junior High School when the redhead's superhuman hearing picked up the sounds of the alarms far below their feet.

"Something wrong?" Shinji asked when he noticed the Second Child abruptly tense up.

"No, nothing," she replied at once, but that was a definite edge to her voice that caused the Third Child to pull back slightly in confusion.

Asuka expected her cell phone and Shinji's to go off at any moment. After all, the alarms going off inside of NERV usually meant one thing and one thing only, namely that the agency had detected an Angel on approach. However, one minute passed, then two, and yet the pilots' phones remained still and silent.

Unable to stand it anymore, Asuka pricked her ears, and with some reluctance threw open the "floodgates."

Some experimentation with her enhanced senses had showed her that she could listen to every single sound in Tokyo-3 if she wanted to. It wasn't pleasant, but she found she could do it without being overwhelmed by the tidal wave of sound, unlike the first time she'd stumbled upon her super hearing.

In a moment, she had managed to focus upon the NERV command center, and a moment after that she had realized what was actually going on.

Her eyes widened, and she came to a sudden stop.

"What?" Shinji asked, coming to a halt a few steps after her, clearly more perplexed by her behavior than ever.

"I…forgot something back at school," Asuka said. "I need to go back and get it."

"I'll come with you," Shinji said.

"No, don't be stupid," Asuka said quickly. "I'll go and then catch up with you. It'll only take me a couple of minutes."

"All right," Shinji agreed with a shrug, even though the redhead had already turned on her heel and was jogging back toward the school.

Asuka arrived back in the building in moments, finding it only sparsely occupied now that class had been dismissed. At a school in a regular city, it still would've been bustling with students going off to club activities. However, most of Tokyo-3 Junior High's schools had disbanded as the student body had grown dramatically smaller.

So she had little difficultly slipping into a janitor's closet unseen so she could change. Asuka quickly unzipped the duffel bag she was carrying with her and withdrew her costume.

It was not Power Girl's white leotard, but the new one she'd created for herself out of the Kryptonian fabric, completed at last.

"Let's go, Asuka," she whispered to herself as she quickly exchanged her school uniform for the costume.

After hiding her duffel behind an old mop and bucket, and doing a quick scan of the area with her X-ray vision to ensure that no one would see her make her departure, Asuka quickly bolted out of the closet and then the school. Within seconds, she was airborne, speeding through the sky in an attempt to avert the catastrophe that most of the people in Tokyo-3 didn't even know was unfolding yet.

Unfortunately, not even Asuka was able to cut off the disaster before it had truly begun. She might have made it to the rogue missile battery in time, had she not taken a couple of precious minutes to change. As it was, she arrived at the huge weapons turret just as it was disgorging a score of missiles, which flew off in all directions.

Asuka swore, even as she pursued one of the closest missiles and lashed out at it with her heat vision, causing it to erupt into a brilliant red and orange fireball. The Girl of Steel pushed her flying ability to its limit as she chased after the fast moving missiles, destroying each one she could catch up to with a blast of fire from her eyes.

For a brief moment, a powerful wave of déjà vu swept over Asuka. The act of pursuing a cluster of missiles as they tore through the clear blue sky, and trying to blow them up before they could reach their targets, struck her as very familiar. There was no reason this should be, since Asuka was certain she'd never had to do this before, but there was no denying the feeling.

And if she hadn't been in such a rush, she might have wondered at it for more than a few seconds. As it was, she quickly pushed the thought aside as she picked a new target.

The problem, she soon realized, was the speed of the missiles, and the fact that they were all going in different directions. She could destroy them with ease, and she had already caused three of them to exploded in the sky harmlessly. However, with every second that passed, the distance between the missiles—and therefore, the distance she needed to traverse in order to destroy them—grew rapidly.

Asuka did some quick calculations in her head and soon reached the conclusion that she'd be _just_ a little bit too slow to stop all of them. One of the missiles _would_ hit something no matter what she did.

Not wasting a moment, the Girl of Steel's gaze swept out, seeing far more than any normal human could hope to with such a quick glance. She smiled; one of the missiles was headed straight for a skyscraper which had been condemned and abandoned due to damage it had received in one of the Angel battles. Satisfied that she could do this, she sped off in pursuit of the other missiles.

* * *

Shinji Ikari was almost halfway to the Misato's apartment building when he and most of the rest of Tokyo-3's citizens realized that something was wrong. Though Tokyo-3 was a fortress city in just about every sense of the term, almost none of its civilian population knew what the big missiles really sounded like when they were cutting through the air. Even though NERV had already launched hundreds of them at the Angels which had come so far, the people had always been in the relative safety of the shelters at the time.

So it was understandable that when the loud roars of the missiles streaking through the sky reached their ears, most people had no idea what they were hearing. Even Shinji, who had received aid from conventional military forces in the form of a missile barrage more than once, didn't immediately identify the sound.

And then the people started to see the missiles as they flew overhead, all radiating out from the central point of the huge missile battery, their smoke trails forming what almost looked like a great spider web in the sky.

Confusion and fear gripped the people on the streets as their eyes turned toward the heavens. Why was NERV firing missiles? Was an Angel attacking the city? If so, why hadn't the alarms sounded? Should they head for the shelters?

The Third Child was even more befuddled than everyone around him; he had no idea what was going on, and he wondered why he hadn't been called in yet, if something big was happening.

_Should I go back to the school and get Asuka?_ He wondered, just before one of the missiles exploded, forming a short-lived second sun in the sky.

Seconds later, several more followed it, only adding to the general feelings of confusion from all the people around him. Shinji felt no more enlightened by this new development than the rest of the people on the streets. He couldn't see any apparent reason for the premature detonation of the missiles, or even why they'd been launched to begin with.

However, a feeling of dread began to build within him. A consummate pessimist, Shinji felt quite sure that whatever was happening, it wasn't good.

He was proven more than correct when one of the missiles crashed into a nearby building, disappearing into a cloud of fire and black smoke.

The loud crash jolted the crowd from their perplexed state straight into a full blown panic. People started to yell and scream everywhere, all of them moving in confused tides toward the nearest shelters.

Shinji, perhaps jaded by all he had already endured, didn't move, but instead just continued to watch the bizarre turn of events unfold. The building the missile had collided with was unoccupied, mercifully, but he could already see great chunks of concrete and other rubble falling toward the sidewalk. The Third Child himself was just far enough from the building that he felt safe where he was, and everyone who wasn't so fortunate was scrambling to safety.

Everyone except a little girl, who stood in the shadow of a particularly large chunk of concrete, staring frozen up at her oncoming doom.

For a brief, endless moment, Shinji Ikari became deaf to the cries and shouts coming from all directions. He became blind to the mass of frightened people churning around him.

All he saw was that little girl.

Then he blinked and saw another little girl in her place, one his cowardice had prevented him from ever meeting, but one he could still picture quite clearly all the same. One who had been badly injured during the First Battle of Tokyo-3, thanks to his total ineptitude with Evangelion.

He saw Toji Suzuhara's little sister standing there, about to be killed by the falling debris, and something inside him snapped. He wouldn't, _couldn't_ allow it to happen.

_**"No!"**_ Shinji screamed, suddenly charging forward, moving as quickly as he could wade through the crowd, which was all going in the opposite direction.

Part of his mind told him that what he was doing was utter madness, but its voice was like a whisper in a gale. Shinji was bound and determined to save that little girl, or die trying.

Finally, he reached the child, but already he knew that he had failed. Only a moment remained before the rubble crashed into the ground. Even if he pulled the girl away from the largest piece, a smaller but no less deadly chunk would get them both. All he had managed to do was get himself killed, too.

_Oh god, Asuka is going to _kill _me for doing something this stupid!_ He thought, even as he threw his arms around the child, instinctively shielding her with his body, for all the good it would do.

He didn't even realize the absurdity of the thought until much later. Instead, Shinji just squeezed his eyes tightly shut and waited for oblivion, a tiny part of him almost guiltily relieved that his ordeals would soon be over for good.

Then…nothing happened.

Eventually realizing that something was amiss, Shinji cautiously opened his eyes, half convinced that he _would_ see the falling rock about to kill him and meet his end as soon as he looked at it.

When he looked up and saw the piece of rubble hovering over him, he became _completely_ convinced for a moment, releasing a small, admittedly girlish yelp of fear.

It was the sound of snickering from nearby that made him finally realize he actually _wasn't_ about to die.

He looked toward the source of the snickering, and his breath caught. Standing before him was one of the most beautiful girls he'd ever seen.

She was blond, and wore a red mask that looked identical to the one Power Girl wore, through which sky blue eyes peeked out at him. Her tight blue shirt made her not inconsiderable curves very apparent, and the yellow and red shield emblem with the "S" inside it on her chest only served to draw the eye to that area. The long sleeves disappeared into the red gloves she wore, but the shirt left her toned midriff bare. A red miniskirt was held up with a yellow belt, and soon yielded to a pair of lithe legs that, from Shinji's perspective, seemed to go on forever. A pair of scarlet boots completed the ensemble.

And she was holding the huge piece of concrete, which had to weigh at _least_ a few tons in Shinji's estimate, above her head as if it was no heavier than a pebble.

The combination of the superwoman's striking good looks and her display of strength left the Third Child stunned silent. He could only gawk up at her stupidly. The little girl he was still loosely clutching was apparently no more capable of speech than he was, because she kept perfectly quiet, too.

Without a word, the superwoman gently set the piece of debris down on the sidewalk, then turned to regard Shinji and the little girl again. The Third Child was aware that nobody nearby seemed to be panicking any longer, and that some of them were even taking pictures of the superwoman, but all of this seemed distant and far off, barely worth his notice. He felt like he was in some kind of dream.

Then the superwoman frowned, and he could see a spark of anger in her blue eyes, one he recognized only too well. It was very much like the spark he saw in Asuka's eyes before she started yelling. Reflexively, he braced himself for the outburst.

Only it didn't come. The superwoman seemed to be on the verge of delivering it, but then she checked herself and remained silent. Instead of yelling, she turned to the crowd, waved briefly, and then shot into the sky. Shinji caught a quick glimpse of another S-shield, this one all in yellow, on her cape as it whipped wildly in the wind. Then she become a mere speck in the sky. Moments after that, she disappeared into the distance entirely.

* * *

"The government isn't pleased about what happened," Kozou Fuyutski said later.

Gendo was barely able to keep himself from smirking at the massive understatement. The Japanese government, the UN, and the JSSDF high command were already shrieking about the missile launch, which could have leveled much of Tokyo-3.

"You're just displeased because you're the one who has to try and placate all the angry officials," Gendo replied, gazing out the massive window that made up the far wall of his office. The light of the setting sun was a brilliant orange, reflecting off the surface of the lake.

"This is no joking matter, Ikari," Fuyutski scowled. "Nobody's going to be satisfied by my reassurances that we will no longer let personnel remain logged in to every MAGI access terminal. Personnel who can activate the city's _defense grid_, mind you."

"Nobody will have any choice in the matter," Gendo said. "So long as we remain the only force that can defeat the Angels, everyone will just have to tolerate us. Besides, the old men will pull strings to ensure no one does anything. NERV being disbanded wouldn't serve them any better than it would us."

"I wouldn't be so complacent if I were you," Fuyutski said. "There were already rumblings from within the regular military that the Evangelions should be decommissioned, leaving defense of the city to the superwomen. This incident is only going to make those voices louder."

A hint of a scowl caused Gendo's features to twist ever so slightly at the mention of them. It was subtle, and quick, but Fuyutski noticed it.

"That's just their envy and frustration at their own impotence speaking," Gendo said. "They know we can't rely upon a few girls who parade around in outlandish costumes, answering to no one but themselves."

Fuyutski was about to make a reply, but he was interrupted by a buzzing sound from Gendo's desk. The Commander's gloved hand pressed a button on his phone.

"Yes?" he asked.

"Commander Ikari, Captain Chiron and Dr. Akagi are here to see you," the voice of Gendo's secretary answered.

"Send them in," Gendo replied, before shutting off the intercom. He turned to Fuyutski. "Speaking of the superwomen…"

The door to the Commander's cavernous office opened, and the Chief of Section Two strode inside, along with the Project-E Chairperson. Dr. Akagi, only too keenly aware of what her laziness had caused, looked far more muted and timid than usual. She carried a small lead box in her hands.

"Captain Chiron, report," Gendo said.

"As I already told you, I finally managed to make Hamilton talk about that crystal," a large smile appeared on the big man's rocky face. "He calls it kryptonite. Apparently, it's a piece of an alien world, and it has a very negative effect on Power Girl."

"Explain," Gendo demanded at once.

"He said that just being in close proximity to the thing made her very weak and sick," Chiron said. "It actually hurts her, in fact. The good doctor couldn't get more specific than that, though. He didn't exactly run a series of tests on how she reacted to it."

The corners of Gendo's lips twisted upwards regardless. "Interesting," he said, then turned to the bottle blonde. "Dr. Akagi, you've been studying this…kryptonite since we received it. What are your findings?"

The scientist quickly placed the lead box on Gendo's desk, then retreated a few steps away before speaking. "What I've discovered so far seems to corroborate Hamilton's story, at least so far as the crystal being extraterrestrial in origin is concerned," she said. "There's absolutely nothing like it on Earth. Even with the MAGI, I haven't quite been able to figure out its molecular structure."

"Go on," Gendo said.

Akagi swallowed before she continued. "The, ah, kryptonite emits a type of nearly 'clean' radiation, unlike any kind generated by terrestrial materials," she said. "In the short term, it's completely harmless to humans, though years of exposure might give you cancer like other forms of radiation."

"Harmless to humans, but not so harmless to whatever Power Girl is, apparently," Gendo mused out loud, opening the box. His face was immediately bathed in the eerie green glow generated by the kryptonite. "Do you suppose we could create a bullet out of this material and snipe her?"

Fuyutski's eyes widened slightly. He realized how much of a thorn in Gendo's size Power Girl was, but shooting the super powered do-gooder in the head seemed rather extreme.

"Sir, for all its strange properties, it's still a crystal," Akagi said, obviously wishing she didn't have to deliver this bit of bad news. "It would never survive the stress of being fired out of a high powered rifle without breaking."

"I see," Gendo replied. He removed the crystal from its box and held it before his face, staring at it with a look of contemplation on his face.

"Um, sir?" Akagi spoke up tentatively.

"Yes?" Gendo asked, not bothering to pull his eyes off the kryptonite.

"The energy generation potential of kryptonite is nothing short of staggering," Akagi said. "In comparison, uranium and plutonium are—"

"Can it power an Evangelion?" Gendo interrupted.

"A piece that small?" Akagi asked. "No, but it certainly merits further study. It is, after all, a mineral from an alien world."

"Do you think you'll be able to synthesize more?" Gendo asked.

"Not…in the foreseeable future, sir, no," Akagi admitted reluctantly.

"Then, Dr. Akagi, I believe I'll hold onto it for now," the Commander said, putting it back into its box and closing the lid.

The bottle blonde scientist privately felt that Gendo was being fantastically foolish, holding onto the kryptonite like some kind of security blanket, rather than letting her continue to learn about it.

However, given the current circumstances, she didn't dare argue with Gendo's decision.

"You two are dismissed," Gendo said. "Captain Chiron, keep up the good work."

* * *

Down below in the Geofront, Ryo Joshuyo was quite oblivious to what was going on in the city of Tokyo-3. He never heard or saw the missiles that had nearly destroyed much of the city. He was unaware of the superwoman who had prevented catastrophe, and he certainly didn't know anything about the members of the Light of the Divine in NERV, who refused to surrender and were killed to the last man by the NERV security force.

He wasn't even aware of it when he washed up on the banks of the river that had swept him far away from the NERV pyramid, since he was quite unconscious at the time. And unconscious, he lay in the mud next to the river for hours, until the light that was reflected into the Geofront by great mirrors had long ago been extinguished by the setting of the sun, and the underground colony was plunged into darkness.

He might have lay there until he died. Certainly, he wasn't far from death, not after the ordeals he'd endured earlier.

It was the rat that saved him.

The little animal crept warily toward Joshuyo's prone form. The man didn't smell right, which was something the rat's keen nose easily picked up. Under more auspicious circumstances, it probably would have left the motionless man alone.

But it was _so_ hungry. The rat's descendants had been introduced to the Geofront as part of an attempt to get something resembling a proper ecosystem in the giant cave, but that attempt had largely failed. The rat population in the subterranean colony was dying out, mostly due to a lack of food and an overabundance of predators.

So even though it realized it was taking a risk, the small rodent advanced on Joshuyo, sniffing tentatively at his hand.

Then its little pink nose brushed up against the man's fingers, and a crackling tongue of white energy, blindingly bright in the nearly total darkness of the Geofront, briefly connected the two.

Ryo Joshuyo's eyes popped open.

The rat released an alarmed squeak and attempted to flee, but it was just a bit too slow. Ryo's finger's wrapped around it before it could make its escape, and more of the white energy burst into being, flowing from the rat and into the now purple-skinned man. The rodent thrashed furiously in a futile attempt to escape for a few seconds but then went still. The cracking energy petered out seconds later.

He sat up…then promptly began coughing violently, evicting some water from his lungs. After his violent fit had sputtered out, he looked around, memories slowly coming back to him as he gazed into the darkness.

_Yuuto!_ _That son of a bitch left me to die!_

The thought caused Ryo to frown. Not because he realized the illogic of being surprised and angry at Yuuto for abandoning him to die; the yakuza enforcer would probably have murdered him if they'd managed to escape without the chemical, after all.

No, what confused him was that he was alive at all. Surely what he'd been through should have killed him, he mused.

Then he looked down at his hand, realizing for the first time that he held something in it, and that it was a small, furry animal. He could feel its sides expand and contract in a regular fashion; it was breathing, albeit very slowly.

Ryo squeezed it, and a few more bolts of white energy crackled around the rat, which, rudely awakened from its stupor, came to life in a brief fit of renewed struggles before it again went still.

It wasn't breathing anymore, but Ryo barely gave that a thought. He noticed that he was feeling better. Not great; after what he'd been through, great was too much to ask for. But he definitely felt a little stronger, a little more energetic, than he had a moment ago.

Ryo stood up and looked around. The Geofront was enveloped in blackness, with the one spot of illumination being a blinking red light in the distance. He could only guess that it was the NERV pyramid, and Ryo knew that he'd have to go there if he wanted to hitch a ride to the surface.

He didn't realize he was still holding onto the body of the dead rat until he had walked a few paces. Ryo regarded it for a moment; he couldn't see it in the almost total darkness, but he could feel its fur, and the way it was starting to grow cold in his grip.

He carelessly dropped it to the ground and chuckled. "You always did call me a parasite, Yuuto," he mused aloud. "Guess it turns out you were right."

* * *

"Come on, baka, move it!" Asuka demanded, practically dragging the Third Child behind her as she left the apartment the next morning.

Shinji Ikari somehow managed to yawn hugely despite having a slice of toast clutched between his teeth. He then reached up and plucked his breakfast out of his mouth so he could speak.

"Asuka, it's early even by your standards. Can't we slow down a little, please?" he asked.

She glared at him, which was all the answer he really needed, but the redhead felt the need to elaborate anyway. "Don't you try that pleading tone with me," she said. "I'm still angry at you for being such a dummkoff yesterday!"

"But Asuka…" Shinji tried to protest.

"You almost got your damn self killed!" she snapped before he could finish.

"There was a little girl," he persisted.

He didn't quite know why he kept trying, having utterly no hope of winning this argument. Even Misato had chewed him out when she'd found out what he'd done; he had had to endure a very long, stern lecture about how valuable being an EVA pilot made his life. And how he couldn't risk that life in an attempt to save one person, because hundreds or thousands more might die if NERV couldn't use Unit One against the coming Angels.

"What you did might have meant something if you'd been able to get that kid out of the way," the Second Child retorted. "All you would have managed to do was die with her if that superwoman hadn't saved your scrawny ass."

"Yeah," Shinji agreed helplessly.

A dreamy look entered the Third Child's eyes at the mention of the superwoman who had saved him. It passed quickly, but Asuka noticed it all the same, and she shifted gears so quickly that it nearly gave Shinji whiplash.

"Oh, is the baka infatuated with one of the superwomen?" she asked in a teasing tone, a smirk appearing on her face.

"N-No!" He stammered.

"Not even a little?" Asuka pressed.

Shinji hesitated just a moment too long in giving his response. Asuka released a loud bark of laughter. "You _are_! Baka Shinji is in love with one of the superwomen! Ha! And after all that mature sounding talk of not thinking about them all that much!"

The Third Child groaned but otherwise kept silent, feeling like he'd just dig himself in deeper if he tried to argue anymore. It had been a while since the redhead had really torn into him like this. He supposed that getting her mad at him had reawakened her desire to tease him more ruthlessly than Misato did.

They arrived at the now familiar newsstand, where the man who ran it was just opening up shop. He smiled as he saw the German redhead approach; she had become one of his most reliable customers.

"Good morning, Soryu-san," he greeted her cheerfully. "Looking for the latest copy of the _Tattler_?"

"You bet I am!" Asuka replied enthusiastically.

She had tried, very hard, to not wonder what the tabloid would say about her and her new costume. Asuka felt that a true hero—like the one Emil Hamilton already thought she was, and the one Jor-El had expected his son to become—wouldn't have cared about such things. A true hero would save people even if the public hated her.

But she had burned with curiosity about the matter practically all night. Eventually, Asuka had rationalized that it didn't matter so much if she _enjoyed_ the attention she got, so long as she wasn't helping people solely _because_ of it.

Hence, why she had dragged Shinji to the newsstand with her well in advance of the start of the school day.

The man working the newsstand handed over the desired tabloid, and Asuka quickly paid him, practically snatching the publication so she could get a look at it.

She was immediately impressed by the large photograph that dominated the cover. Someone who'd been present when she'd saved Shinji from getting squashed either had some skill with a camera or had gotten pretty lucky.

The picture showed her, in her new costume, holding up a chunk of concrete that was about the size of a small truck with no visible strain (as, indeed, she had felt no strain at all). And cowering in the shadow that chunk of concrete cast were…

"Ha! Hey, this is a great picture of you, Shinji!" she exclaimed, waving it in front of his nose.

The Third Child groaned. He looked utterly pathetic. Fortunately, it was impossible to tell that it was him from the picture alone, since his face was turned away from the camera. However, Asuka knew, which made it embarrassing enough.

"So, what does it say about that superwoman?" he asked in a rare burst of shrewdness, deftly distracting the redhead.

"Good question," she replied, opening up the tabloid and flipping through it until she reached the cover story.

Shinji looked over her shoulder at the headline. It read "Power Girl's New Threads or a New Superwoman in Tokyo-3?"

"I don't believe this," Asuka scoffed. "They think she's a new one? She's wearing the same gloves, boots, and mask as Power Girl. Even the belt looks exactly the same!"

Shinji blinked, surprised both at how quickly Asuka had noticed those details, which he was only now belatedly seeing, and by how quickly she'd read the headline.

"You're getting better at the kanji," he commented.

"Yeah, they weren't that hard when I put my mind to it," Asuka replied with a smug grin before turning her attention back to the article. "I don't believe this."

"What?" Shinji asked.

"They've already renamed her," Asuka replied. "I guess they must have felt they had to because of that 'S' symbol she wears on her shirt, or something."

Shinji glanced at the shield emblem on the superwoman's chest. Asuka noticed.

"Stop ogling her, hentai!" she snapped. "She saved your rear end. The least you could do is show a little respect! Besides, who knows what she might do if she found out you were looking at her pictures like that. She might fillet you."

_She'd have to fillet just about every guy who goes to Tokyo-3 Junior High, too, if she wanted to take out everybody who looks at her picture while thinking dirty things,_ Shinji mused, but prudently didn't say.

"What are they calling her?" he asked.

"Supergirl," Asuka answered.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **This chapter drove me crazy. I had wanted to have the actual battle against the Parasite in here, but I eventually decided it was necessary to get the costume change in now to go with Asuka's attempts at genuine heroism. She may not be quite there yet, but I wanted to mark this turning point by having her don the Supergirl costume at last. And that took up about the whole chapter.

Speaking of that costume, it took me a ridiculous amount of thinking to end up putting Asuka into something that's very close to what Kara's wearing now. In the end I decided like that costume, and that it was something Asuka would wear. She loves to show off, after all, and that's not going to change overnight.

**Michael Smith**, while there definitely would be some logic to making Asuka into Superboy, I preferred to make her into the character who has about 80 years comic book history behind him, and the extremely well fleshed out mythos that goes with that.

Anyway, thanks as always to my readers and reviewers, and special thanks to my beta readers, who put up with my whining about this chapter.

Anyway, now for some fun.

* * *

Omakes

Third Wall? What Third Wall?

"Power Girl," the mugger whispered, then cursed.

The man was quick, and smart, so far as petty thieves went. He quickly turned, pointing his gun directly at Kiku again.

Or at least, he tried to point his gun directly at her. The second he started to turn the firearm away from Power Girl, she began a blur of red and white. To the mugger, she seemed to just materialize from thin air in between himself and Kiku.

Surprised, he let out a small cry and reflexively pulled the trigger. The noise was deafening inside the cramped alleyway.

And though Kiku couldn't see it, the bullet slammed right into the Girl of Steel's right eye. Power Girl didn't even blink, and the round crumpled up like a soda can.

"Hey!" Power Girl exclaimed, unharmed but seriously pissed off. "You shot me right in the freaking _eye_! That was both low, _and_ an extremely gratuitous shout out to _Superman Returns_!"

"Oh, this from the Kryptonian girl who's about to rescue a cat named Streaky!" the mugger retorted.

"Hey, that's a much more obscure reference!" Power Girl snapped.

"Uh, what are you two _talking_ about?" Kiku asked.

Power Girl and the mugger froze. Then the Girl of Steel pointed upwards. "Look! Up in the sky!"

"Where?" Kiku asked, turning her gaze skyward.

Power Girl quickly belted the mugger, knocking him out cold. Then she grabbed hold of Kiku and took off into the air. "C'mon, let's go find your lost cat!"

"Uh, I haven't actually told you about that yet," Kiku said, more confused than ever.

* * *

Mixed Tape of Doom

"Well, I think we're done for the day, Dr. Hamilton," Chiron said, at the end of the scientist's first round of enhanced interrogation.

_Thank goodness,_ Hamilton thought.

"I hope you won't mind that I've taken the liberty of arranging that some tunes for you to sleep by will be played in here," Chiron said cheerfully, leaving before a suddenly anxious Hamilton could ask about that.

* * *

_The next morning…_

"Ohayo, Dr. Hamilton," Chiron said cheerfully. "I hope that you're ready for…" he trailed off, struck by just how demented the scientist looked that day. "Hamilton, you all right?"

"Okay? How could I be okay?" the academic demanded. "The Crawling Chaos is coming! Gorg! Abblah!" he cackled insanely.

_God damn it,_ Chiron thought. He'd had subjects snap on him before, but never this fast. Growling, he stalked out of the scientist's cell.

"What the hell was on that tape we had him listening to all last night?" Chiron demanded of one of his underlings.

"Um," the man nervously scrambled to check. "Fourteen repetitions of _What's New Pussycat, _the Barney the Dinosaur song, everything ever produced by Abba, ever, and—oh man—the greatest hits of Jerry Seinfeld's comedy routines."

"_What?_" Chiron roared. "It's no wonder he went insane! What sadistic bastard _made_ that mixed tape?"

"Um, that would be you, sir."

The Chief of Section Two could only smack his forehead. _The Commander is going to __**kill**__ me,_ he thought. _Or worse yet, make me listen to that tape._

* * *

Alternate Costume

_**"No!"**_ Shinji screamed, suddenly charging forward, moving as quickly as he could wade through the crowd, which was all going in the opposite direction.

Finally, he reached the child, but already he knew that he had failed. Only a moment remained before the rubble crashed into the ground.

_Oh god, Asuka is going to _kill _me for doing something this stupid!_ He thought, even as he threw his arms around the child, instinctively shielding her with his body, for all the good it would do.

Then…nothing happened.

Eventually realizing that something was amiss, Shinji cautiously opened his eyes, half convinced that he _would_ see the falling rock about to kill him and meet his end as soon as he looked at it.

When he looked up and saw the piece of rubble hovering over him, he became _completely_ convinced for a moment, releasing a small, admittedly girlish yelp of fear.

It was the sound of snickering from nearby that made him finally realize he actually _wasn't_ about to die.

He looked toward the source of the snickering, and his breath caught. Standing before him was one of the most scantily dressed girls he'd ever seen in person.

Her superwoman costume consisted of boots, gloves, a mask, a red cape, and a _very_ minimal blue bikini.

"Are you all right, citizen?" she asked.

Shinji didn't reply. Instead, a geyser of red shot forth from his nose, and he promptly fainted due to the abrupt blood loss.

Asuka sighed. "So much for you not being a pervert…"

A loud whistle suddenly sounded from the nearby crowd, and she turned to see everyone snapping pictures of her. Normally this would have pleased her, but her super hearing allowed her to observe that most of the people were planning to sell the shots to one of the local girlie magazines, rather than the _Tokyo Tattler_.

"I destroyed most of the space fabric when I tried to cut it with my heat vision!" she stammered out of the crowd. "I didn't have enough to make anything more than this!"

"Hey, what's your superwoman name? Ultra Pole Dancer?" someone shouted. "Super Stripper?"

"_**Don't judge me!**_**" **she shrieked.


	10. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC Comics or anything associated with it, and I am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Nine: **Power Drain

It was three in the morning, and Kiyoshi just wanted to get some sleep. Unfortunately, there was no rest for the truly pious within the city of Tokyo-3, or within all of Japan for that matter.

Not since NERV had managed to get the Light of the Divine classified as a terrorist organization.

_Honestly, a few members fire off a couple of missiles and now we're __**all**__ murderers and criminals? How fair is that?_ Kiyoshi mused darkly.

Which wasn't to say he wouldn't have gleefully joined the team that had invaded NERV's headquarters, if he'd been offered a spot on it. Still, that didn't prevent him from feeling righteous indignation at being hunted for his associates' crimes.

Feeling extremely tired and possessing a head full of angry thoughts, Kiyoshi almost missed his destination. Now _that_ would've been disastrous; it was dangerous for any known member of the Light of the Divine to be out on the streets, even at this hour.

The man came to a halt at where he had been supposed to go to, a frown sprouting on his face. "This is supposed to be a safe house?" he muttered to himself, gazing skeptically at the decrepit looking warehouse before him.

Certain, more paranoid, members of their order had foreseen something like their current situation coming to pass, and had set up some contingencies as a result. The existence of emergency fall back points was one of them…but this didn't look quite right to Kiyoshi.

Unfortunately, he had little choice if he wanted to still be a free man come sunrise. With a soft sigh, Kiyoshi approached the warehouse. The front door was held securely shut by a heavy chain and padlock, but that was no issue; he climbed up a stack of steel drums, reaching an open window on the side of the building. He slipped through, and—

"Ahh!" he shouted as he found himself falling several feet to the floor inside the warehouse. "Ow..." he groaned as he hit the hard concrete.

Before he had even begun to contemplate getting up, Kiyoshi heard the sound of running feet coming toward him. He looked up to see a pair of men, each holding a pistol, approaching him.

"Are you a true believer?" one of them demanded at once.

"Yes!" Kiyoshi replied.

The man's eyes narrowed. "I am the Light in the darkness…"

"…I illuminate the one true path to the Divine," Kiyoshi finished.

The two men immediately pointed their weapons away from him, and the first one offered him a hand up. Kiyoshi gratefully accepted.

"Welcome, brother," he said. "I'm Masa, and this is Nobu."

"We've been holed up here since this morning," Nobu said. "Do you have any news about the rest of the faithful?"

"More than I'd like to," Kiyoshi said with a deep sigh.

"Are things that bad out there?" Masa asked.

"They're _worse_. NERV's secret police are shooting us on sight, while the regular cops raid the homes of the faithful. Brothers and sisters are disavowing the Light left and right, saying they were forced to join, all so they can escape jail," he paused. "Hirayama-san betrayed us."

"No!" Nobu gasped.

"He wouldn't," Masa added.

Kou Hirayama was one of the wealthier members of the Light of the Divine. His home was, in fact, one of the cult's emergency fallback points.

"He did," Kiyoshi said grimly. "He took in almost two dozen of the faithful, then he called the police and let them know they were there. He traded them to save himself."

Nobu and Masa exchanged a look.

"His home was our next destination," Masa said.

"I know," Nobu replied. "It looks like all we have left now is Plan B."

"What's Plan B?" Kiyoshi asked with a frown.

Nobu gestured for Kiyoshi to follow him, and guided the other two men toward a large wooden crate. The lid was no longer attached, so he was easily able to move it aside and reveal the cache of firearms stored inside. Kiyoshi let out a low whistle at the sight.

"This _has_ to have been stolen from the military," he commented.

"We don't know where it came from," Masa said, looking down at the weapons solemnly. "It was just here when we arrived. If I had to guess, I'd say that some of our brothers left it here, in case a situation like this ever happened."

"So, what's the plan?" Kiyoshi asked, even though he already had a pretty good idea.

"Suicide mission," Nobu answered. "We storm the pilots' school and hope that NERV's secret police force is stretched too thin hunting down our brothers and sisters to adequately protect them. We won't get out alive, but if we're _very_ lucky, we'll end the madness of mankind defying God's judgment in one fell swoop."

"That's a really horrible plan, guys, and _not_ just because your luck is in the pits."

The trio of men jumped at the unexpected voice coming from above them, then looked up. Supergirl sat on one of the beams by the warehouse's ceiling, her legs crossed.

"Damn it!" Nobu hissed.

"Shoot her!" Masa yelled.

Kiyoshi wanted to ask what good _that_ would do, but his fellow members of the Light of the Divine were squeezing the triggers on their pistols before he could say a word. Even inside the large, mostly empty warehouse, the reports were utterly deafening.

Neither Nobu nor Masa was a marksman, and the first several shots completely missed the Girl of Steel. However, once she abandoned her perch and flew down toward them, their accuracy greatly improved.

Of course, the rounds that did hit her just bounced off harmlessly, to the surprise of no one except the two desperate cultists who'd started shooting to begin with.

As she flew through the storm of gunfire, Supergirl's eyes changed from blue to red, then discharged twin beams of thermal energy right at Masa's weapon. The man released a cry of pain and dropped the pistol—which was already starting to glow orange—to the floor.

"Ahh!" Nobu cried out a moment later as an uppercut from Supergirl launched him across the warehouse floor, his pistol flying out of his hand as he went.

Then she turned her gaze on Kiyoshi. The last cultist put his hands up to show that they were empty. He didn't really see why the presence or the absence of a weapon would matter to a girl who could shrug off a direct hit from a bazooka. Nevertheless, the gesture seemed to placate her somewhat.

"Why are you doing this to us?" he asked, hoping he could reason with her. "Most of us didn't even _know_ about the plan to hijack the defense grid, let alone participate in it. Can't you show us some mercy?"

Supergirl grabbed a handful of his shirt and then lifted his feet off the ground. Since she was shorter than he, she herself had to hover a few feet in the air in order to achieve the feat.

"A friend of mine was almost killed by your organization's little stunt, so I'm not going to take any chances with you people," she said. "But I _will_ show you mercy…by turning you over to the police instead of letting Section Two use you for target practice."

Kiyoshi could only sigh in defeat, realizing that the Girl of Steel wasn't going to be swayed.

_I didn't really want to die today, anyway,_ he thought.

* * *

Ryo Joshuyo—or the Parasite, as he now thought of himself—was tired.

He had spent all night walking toward the approximate center of the Geofront, where NERV headquarters and, more importantly, the surface tram were located. He'd long ago expended the energy he'd taken from the rat that was unlucky enough to wake him up, and he was feeling sleepy and hungry.

"Wish I could stop," he muttered to himself. "Or at least find something else to drain…"

Unfortunately for him, fauna was scare inside the Geofront. He would've found a soft patch of ground to have a nap on, but he was afraid that he'd wake up to find NERV security pointing guns at him.

On the plus side, he had almost reached his destination. The small train station that connected the Geofront to the city above was well within sight. As dawn had only come less than half an hour ago, though, he wasn't entirely sure anyone would be there.

"How am I gonna do this?" he wondered aloud as he crept up to the station.

He noticed that one of the passenger trains that the NERV employees used was sitting there, and to his delight, he saw movement within it. A single man dressed in a simple brown uniform stood in the engine compartment, looking over the controls. Ryo approached as quietly as he could, then threw open the door to the compartment and entered.

The operator whirled around, then did a double take at the sight of the man before him. The Parasite's skin had darkened to purple by this time, with white markings appearing on several places on his body.

"What—Who are you?" he asked, more confused than afraid. "Do you need help?"

"No, but you will," Ryo smirked, and leapt toward the operator, wrapping his arms around the man.

White energy cracked around the two of them as the Parasite drained the hapless man, and the operator screamed. Within a few seconds, though, he had gone limp and quiet within the Parasite's grip.

"Man, this is incredible!" Ryo crowed, suddenly feeling like he had gotten eight hours of sleep and eaten a full meal.

The Parasite carelessly tossed the unfortunate train operator aside, and the man fell limply to the floor. He was still breathing, but he wasn't doing much else.

Not that Ryo even bothered to check to see if his victim was still alive or not. Instead, he turned his attention to the controls. He had expected to find little more than a "go" button, a "stop" button, and possibly a lever to control the speed. The reality was a bit more complicated, but Ryo was still able to work the thing with ease, oddly enough. Within minutes, the train was running and heading up the track that would take it back to Tokyo-3.

He thought of the yakuza enforcer who had left him to die, and a malicious light appeared in his eyes. "Yuuto, I can't wait to show you the new me," Ryo said.

* * *

Time could be a funny thing, and Asuka was finding that her perception of it was becoming slightly warped. This wasn't a result of her new abilities, however.

At least, it wasn't a _direct_ result of them.

Ever since her powers had begun to bloom in earnest, she'd noticed that she didn't require nearly as much food and sleep as she had before. Since she'd started trying to be a true hero, she'd put this to use, performing a number of late night or early morning patrols. Overall, it was working well so far; she wasn't feeling any real strain from her new schedule, and she believed she could continue on with it indefinitely.

However, her subconscious had yet to get with the program, and the days just seemed unnaturally long to her.

_Especially today,_ she thought, drumming her fingers on her desk, and being careful not to destroy the thing in the process. _Is school __**ever**__ going to end?_

She glanced at the clock for what felt like the thousandth time in the last hour and saw to her relief that only a minute remained. Her eyes followed the second hand as it lazily made its way around the clock face, until _finally_ the bell rang.

_Thank Gott,_ she thought.

The redhead quickly gathered up her things, then got up from her seat and made a beeline straight for Shinji. The Third Child saw her approach and gave her a small, nervous smile, not quite sure what to expect.

"Um, do you need something, Asuka?" he asked.

"Hikari and I are going to hang out," she announced. "You're going to carry my books home for me."

Not giving him a chance to object, or make any sort of reply at all, she thrust her books at him. They collided with his stomach with enough force to knock the wind out of him. Shinji nearly doubled over, but he grabbed hold of Asuka's things anyway.

"Ah, sure, of course," he agreed quickly, even as he wondered just how Asuka had managed to become so strong. It wasn't the first time he'd pondered the question. "No problem."

_What the heck did they feed her at the Second Branch? _He thought. _And why don't they serve it at NERV Central?_

"Good," she sniffed, then spun on her heel and headed over to the class rep.

"Ready to go, Asuka?" Hikari asked.

"Just give me a minute," the German girl replied. "I want to change."

Hikari resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "I don't get why you feel the need to change the second school ends lately," she said, even as she followed the redhead toward the nearest girl's restroom.

"Maybe I'm just sick of all the stifling conformity imposed upon us," Asuka replied. "Or maybe I think this damn uniform hides too much of my natural beauty."

This time Hikari _did_ roll her eyes, more at the first reason than the second, which had been delivered in a (mostly) joking tone.

_Westerners..._

Nevertheless, she waited patiently while Asuka ducked into one of the bathroom stalls with her red gym bag, emerging a moment later in a skirt and blouse combination, colored a dark shade of burgundy.

"Now are you ready?" Hikari asked.

"As ever," Asuka replied gamely.

The redhead and her friend were able to quickly traverse the distance between the restroom and the exit, despite the press of students eager to escape their classes, and they were soon on the sidewalk outside.

"I'm really glad we're getting to hang out today," Asuka said cheerfully. "Between NERV and everything else, we haven't gotten to spend a lot of time together recently."

"Right," Hikari agreed distantly.

Asuka quirked an eyebrow. "Something wrong?" she asked. "You're not worried about your sisters, are you? Because if they can't make it through one afternoon without you—"

"No, no, it's nothing like that," the pigtailed girl replied, glancing back in the direction of the school. "It's just…you're been pretty rough on Shinji. Don't you think it's time you gave him a break?"

Asuka scowled. "The baka almost got himself killed!" she exclaimed. "Idiocy of that level has to be adequately punished!"

Hikari didn't say anything in response to this, but a knowing smirk appeared on her face.

"What?" Asuka demanded at once. "What is that about?"

"Oh, nothing," Hikari replied, though it sounded like she was struggling not to laugh.

"Yeah, right," Asuka said. "C'mon, spill!"

The smirk didn't leave Hikari's face. "Well, it seems to me that you're so mad at Ikari because him almost getting killed made you afraid for him," she said. "And you were so afraid for him because you _care_ for him."

Despite all of her incredible abilities, Asuka was unable to stop her face from turning bright red. "T-That's absurd!" she sputtered, which only amused the freckled girl further. "You don't need to care about a person to punish their stupidity! Unless you think I like Suzuhara, too."

"Asuka…" Hikari said, and suddenly she didn't seem to be quite on the verge of giggling anymore.

"Honestly, you could do _so_ much better than that dumb jock," the redhead continued. "He's just a hormonal meathead. You need someone who sees how mature you are and realizes that makes you a real catch."

Hikari's eyes narrowed. "You're trying to shift the conversation away from you and Ikari," she said.

"I am not," Asuka said stubbornly, crossing her arms.

The smile reappeared on Hikari's face. "Yes, you are."

The debate that seemed destined to follow would have been fairly lengthy but also completely inconclusive, as they always were when the two girls discussed this particular topic.

Before they could really get into it, however, a loud scream from nearby cut them off.

"…what was that?" Hikari asked, looking understandably spooked.

"I don't—"

Before Asuka could even finish answering her friend, about half a dozen people emerged from a small side street, all of them running at top speed. One of them saw the pair of teenaged girls and shouted, "You have to get away from here! There's a monster over there!"

"A monster?" Hikari asked, her eyes widening.

"It's probably an Angel!" another person exclaimed.

Before either girl could question the group further, they had all run past them, clearly intent on getting away as quickly as possible.

"Do you really think that there's an Angel over there?" Hikari asked.

Asuka didn't immediately answer her friend; she was too busy using her X-ray vision to look through several buildings. She quickly honed in on what the small crowd had been running away from, namely a man with purple and white skin. He was harassing a man whose appearance practically screamed "yakuza", and every time Mr. Purple touched the yakuza guy, a bolt of white energy connected the two.

"Asuka?" the class rep said again.

"I don't think it's an Angel, Hikari," the redhead replied, allowing her vision to return to normal. "If it was, we'd probably be able to see it from here; they do tend to be big. Even so, maybe you should head home, just in case you and your sisters need to evacuate. I have to call NERV and make sure this is just a false alarm."

"Right," Hikari nodded. "I'll call you tonight, and be careful."

"I will," Asuka promised.

The class rep quickly spun on her heel and began to retreat in the direction of her home. Once she was gone, Asuka sighed, vowing that the idiot who had denied her an afternoon with her best friend was going to pay.

Then she looked around, and, satisfied that no one was watching her, she quickly ducked into a nearby alleyway. Once there, her nimble fingers opened the buttons on the front of her blouse. She pulled the garment open, revealing the S-shield on the shirt hidden underneath.

* * *

Ryo had managed to find his "old friend" Yuuto with no real difficulty at all. The yakuza enforcer, as a rule of thumb, didn't stray far from the neighborhood his organization controlled, and the Parasite had found him there.

Yuuto had a brown paper bag full of groceries in his hands. That enraged Ryu; so far as the yakuza enforcer knew, he had left his partner in crime to die just the day before. The man shouldn't have been acting like everything was normal.

"Hello, Yuuto," he said.

The yakuza enforcer immediately whirled around when he heard someone call his name, and his eyes widened when they took in the Parasite.

"Who are you?" he asked softly. "_What_ are you?"

"What? You don't recognize me, Yuuto?" Ryo asked in a faux jovial tone. "It's your old friend Ryo Joshuyo! You know, _the one you left for dead._"

The look that appeared on Yuuto's face when he heard that was truly, truly priceless.

In fact, the _old_ Ryo Joshuyo probably would've considered that by itself to be sufficient payback for what the yakuza enforcer had done to him. Of course, the _old_ Ryo Joshuyo had been willing to accept a lot of crummy things.

The new and improved Ryo Joshuyo had far higher standards.

"Ryo?" Yuuto asked, disbelieving.

The Parasite poked the yakuza enforcer in the chest, and a tongue of crackling white energy suddenly came into existence, flowing from the normal man to the changed one.

"Ow!" Yuuto exclaimed, his gaze becoming fearful. "L-Listen, Ryo, let me help you. You should really be in a hospital."

"A hospital?" Ryo laughed. "I've never felt better, Yuuto!"

He poked the yakuza enforcer again, getting the man to wince and retreat a few steps.

The Parasite smiled wickedly as he felt even this tiny portion of the other man's strength and vitality surge into him. The rush was nothing short of addictive. It was even better than gambling, and that was the vice that had put him on the criminal path to begin with. "You see, Yuuto, whenever I touch somebody, I get strong," Ryo explained, even as he continued to prod at the yakuza man. "I steal their energy, and I can do it to _anyone._"

By now, the Parasite and the yakuza man had gathered a moderately sized crowd of onlookers. However, his last statement had proved to be just a bit too ominous for a few of them; about half a dozen people decided to flee and began stampeding away.

Ryo ignored them, keeping his attention focused on Yuuto. "It's such an amazing feeling," he said. "It's like the whole world is suddenly mine for the taking, after a lifetime of getting kicked around."

"Yeah, that's…that's real good, Ryo," Yuuto said.

"But words can't really describe it," the Parasite said. "Here, let me show you!"

He grabbed hold of Yuuto's shoulders, and the man threw his head back and screamed as he was suddenly surrounded by white energy, all of which rapidly flowed into the Parasite.

Ryo threw his own head back as well. However, the gesture wasn't one of pain; the Parasite was feeling nothing but pure ecstasy.

"Put him down!" a girl's voice rudely interrupted his moment.

The Parasite opened his eyes and turned to see that Supergirl had just arrived at the scene. He immediately tossed aside Yuuto, who was mostly drained by that point anyway. The yakuza enforcer groaned softly as he hit the ground, then he slipped into unconsciousness.

"Who are you?" Supergirl asked, taking a few steps toward the Parasite. "What happened to you?"

"My name is Ryo Joshuyo," he answered, suddenly the very picture of reasonableness. "I was exposed to some sort of…experimental chemicals, and they made me like this. It's like I'm some kind of monster. Can you help me, Supergirl?"

The Girl of Steel relaxed upon seeing his compliant attitude. "I'm going to take you to a hospital," she answered, approaching him. "Hopefully, they'll be able to change you back to normal."

"Okay, Supergirl," he said. "Just don't hurt me."

"I won't," she vowed.

"No, you won't," he agreed, a wicked smile appearing on his face as he struck, grabbing her by the shoulders.

White lightning erupted into existence around the two of them, far brighter than it had been when the Parasite had drained Yuuto. The small crowd of onlookers had no choice but to look away from the scene, lest they be blinded. However, they could all hear Supergirl's scream.

"Oh, _yeah!_" Parasite yelled. Yuuto's energy was _nothing_ compared to this!

"Get away from me!" Supergirl cried, getting herself under control and shoving Joshuyo away from her.

The storm of white lightning died the moment they broke contact, but the Girl of Steel didn't feel right. Her heart was hammering unpleasantly in her chest, and the world seemed a good deal dimmer, as though a cloud had blocked out the sun. The sounds all around her had become muffled, too, like there was cotton stuffed in her ears.

Ryo, on the other hand, was obviously feeling great.

"Amazing! So that's what _real_ power feels like!" he shouted, flexing his arms.

He walked over to a parked vehicle, grabbed it, and smoothly hefted it up over his head. With a grunt of effort, he hurled the vehicle into the street, the front end crumpling as it hit the pavement. Then he stared at the car, and twin beams of orange light burst forth from his eyes and hit it, setting it on fire.

"Did you see that?" he demanded of the crowd, even though the group of onlookers was fleeing in terror by this point. "Did you see what I just did?"

Scowling darkly at the Parasite's destructive and downright juvenile display, Supergirl walked over to a nearby stop sign and grabbed hold of it. She ripped it out of the ground the way a normal person might pluck a carrot from the soft earth, getting a big chunk of concrete along with the sign itself.

She tried to ignore how much effort it took her to liberate the thing, as well as how much heavier it felt than it should have.

"All right, that's enough, you jerk!" she exclaimed.

Supergirl swung the sign at her foe like a baseball bat, and the concrete lump on the end hit the Parasite directly in the torso, shattering upon impact.

Ryo Joshuyo wasn't even fazed by the blow.

"Looks like you've still got some juice left," he observed. "Let's fix that."

He charged at her. Supergirl attempted to dodge, but her body responded far more slowly than it should have. The Parasite was easily able to wrap his arms around her in a bear hug, bringing back that horrible white lightning.

"_Ahhh!_" Supergirl cried.

She tried desperately to free herself, but the Parasite seemed to have become much stronger than he'd been only a minute ago. Impossibly, he was able to restrain her.

Finally, the energy flow ebbed and at last stopped. Joshuyo released his grip on Supergirl, and she staggered backwards, her legs wobbly beneath her. The girl who could usually juggle trucks suddenly felt almost too weak to stand.

"What did you…?" she gasped out.

The Parasite ignored her question, grinning wickedly down at her. "Thank you, Supergirl," he said. "Because of you, nobody will ever push Ryo Joshuyo around again. _Nobody!_"

Then he took to the air, flying up into the blue and rapidly becoming little more than a purple speck in the distance.

Intending to go after him despite the way she was feeling, Supergirl raised a fist skyward…but her feet remained firmly planted on the ground. She was earthbound.

"No…" she breathed, her inability to defy gravity forcing her to at last accept the obvious, much as she didn't want to see it.

Ryo Joshuyo had stolen her superpowers from her. All of them.

Supergirl looked around, finding the street empty; everyone had done the smart thing and run when the Parasite had started throwing cars around just to show off his new strength.

_I have to get my uniform off before anyone comes back!_ She thought.

Supergirl took off, running as fast as her wobbly legs would take her.

She tried to convince herself that she wasn't running from the pain of defeat.

* * *

The hidden laboratory was one of the most secret locations within all of Germany. The Chancellor did not know it existed. The flag officers in charge of the German military did not know it existed. The head of Germany's foremost intelligence agency did not know it existed.

Indeed, aside from the people who staffed the facility, there was really only one person who knew it existed. This individual was currently a hot topic of discussion among that staff.

"Mein Gott, Hans, where the hell did Lorenz _get_ this?"

"Oscar, don't ask too many questions. Around here, it's bad for your health."

The two men, both of whom were wearing white lab coats, were currently gazing at a large hologram of a DNA strand. The 3-D image would've meant little to most people, but Oscar and Hans were easily able to see the subtle yet important irregularities in the shape and pattern.

"I'm a scientist, Hans, it's in my damn nature to be curious," Oscar said, gesturing wildly. "And how can anyone not be curious about _this_? The things our tests have been showing—!"

"Oscar, shut up," Hans hissed.

Oscar scowled, crossing his arms. However, when he spoke again, he did so in a much quieter voice. "At least we knew where the Adam DNA came from," he said. "But this? All we know is that one day Keel sends us a dead baby, along with a whole bunch of notes about him. How can you not wonder about that?"

Hans pressed his lips together until they formed a thin line. "I heard a…a rumor," he said.

"A rumor?" Oscar asked, frowning.

"Yes, a rumor, but it's the best explanation I've heard about this so far," Hans said. "Now, if I tell you, will you shut up about this already?"

Oscar nodded eagerly.

Hans looked around the lab nervously, to make sure they weren't being observed before he spoke again. "Word has it that Lorenz took the infant from STAR."

"STAR? They haven't been a major player in the scientific world in years," Oscar protested.

"I know that, but that's the story. And like I said, it does make some sense. Those notes Lorenz gave us weren't some amateur's idle ramblings. They were made by a professional scientist," Hans pointed out.

"STAR. I just don't believe it," Oscar said, shaking his head.

Hans shrugged, not really caring what the other man believed. "Well, wherever he came from, we'd better gets this kid's genes sequenced pronto. I hear Lorenz is _really_ eager for this project to bear fruit. There are whispers that he might even come here to check in on us."

Oscar snorted. "As if that geriatric cyclops would ever bother to get his wrinkled old behind over—"

The door behind him opened with a soft hiss, and Hans's eyes widened.

"Herr Chairman Keel!" he exclaimed, very loudly and with a desperate look at Oscar. "How wonderful to see you! What a pleasant surprise!"

Believing that Han was playing a joke on him, Oscar rolled his eyes and turned. His face paled when he took in the sight of the Instrumentality Committee's chairman.

"H-Herr Keel!" Oscar stammered. "Welcome!"

The ancient but still formidable man glared down at the two scientists. At least they thought he was glaring at them; it was hard to tell, thanks to the visor Keel wore.

"Skip the pleasantries, gentlemen," he said. "I came here for an update. What have you managed to learn about the child's DNA?"

"An update. Of course, of course," Hans said, wringing his hands together.

He went over to the holo-projector he and Oscar had been using and pressed a button on it. The single genome that the two men had been looking at winked out, replaced by a much longer chain of DNA.

"We've already sequenced a significant portion of the child's DNA," Hans continued. "Overall, it bears a great resemblance to human genes, even sharing the double-helix structure. However, there are a number of key differences which lead us to believe that the child's origins are not of this world."

"We've plugged the boy's genetic data into Frederick," Oscar added, pointing toward the core of facility's sixth generation supercomputer, "and he simulated what the child would be like if he'd grown to adulthood. He would've continued to appear to be a human male, but he would've developed stupendous powers."

"Gentlemen, you are telling me things I already know," Keel growled. "I don't need scientists for that."

"Ah, of course, sir," Hans said.

"Our apologies," Oscar added.

"Can you clone the boy?" Keel demanded. "Can you splice the genes which would've granted him his powers into a living organism?"

Hans and Oscar traded a look, silently but furiously debating who had to answer those questions.

"Well?" Keel asked impatiently.

"No, sir," Oscar said. "We can't do either of those things."

"Why not?" Keel asked.

Oscar swallowed, sweat appearing at his brow despite the room's cold temperature. "We attempted cloning, sir," he tried to explain. "However, it simply didn't work. All the embryos died, and we haven't managed to discern why yet, sir. We plan to attempt drug therapy to keep them alive, but until we can figure out the reason they failed, we're taking shots in the dark."

"What about splicing?"

"In-infeasible at this time, sir," Oscar stammered. "Frederick has isolated the genomes that are more likely responsible for the superhuman abilities, sir. These, unfortunately, have proven to be _enormously_ complex. We can't figure out how to splice them into a human's genetic code without simply killing that human."

"A hybrid being already exists," Keel said. "I gave you the notes of the scientist who created that hybrid."

"Ah, well, sir, you see…key portions of those notes were deleted, probably just in case they were ever taken," Oscar stammered. "Whoever made them didn't want his discoveries to be spread around."

"So, are you telling me you can't do this?" Keel asked.

"No, sir, I'm not saying that," Oscar replied, swallowing out of nervousness. "What I am saying is that it would take years of study to truly understand this alien DNA."

"Unacceptable," Keel said flatly.

"Sir, these things take a long time. It's as simple as that," Oscar protested. "I mean, perhaps, with a bit of luck, we might be able to create a gene splicing procedure that will produce a more-or-less viable hybrid. However, the risks of both physical and mental deformities occurring in the subject are _astronomically_ high."

"Deformities are acceptable, so long as they don't interfere with the subject's ability to fight," Keel said. "I don't need a new media darling, I need something with the raw power than DNA can provide. Do I make myself clear, gentlemen?"

"As crystal, sir," Oscar said.

* * *

"Ah-_choo!_"

Laying in her bed, Asuka reached out, groping blindly at the objects on her bedside table until she found a box of Kleenex. She plucked one and then blew her nose in it. Making a point of not looking at what she'd produced, the redhead wadded up the tissue and tossed it into a small waste bin next to her bed.

"Ugh, how do normal people put up with this?" she wondered, not for the first time.

Asuka had _never_ been sick before. She'd never even had a case of the _sniffles_ before, so it had been a very unpleasant surprise when she'd woken up the day after the Parasite had drained her with flu-like symptoms.

_My powers must've always kept me from catching a cold, even when they were mostly dormant, something I was a complete __**idiot**__ not to have realized sooner,_ she thought. _And now that I don't have those powers anymore, I'm probably going to be getting sick all the time until I develop more antibodies. Like a kid in kindergarten…_

It wasn't exactly a pleasant thought, but if it had been the only thing she had to worry about, Asuka would've been a lot happier than she currently was.

"Ryo Joshuyo," she muttered to herself as she gazed up at the ceiling.

The freak who now had her superpowers hadn't exactly gone to ground. Instead, he'd been rampaging through Tokyo-3, doing or taking anything he wanted. His first act had been to slaughter a bunch of yakuza members for some reason.

After that, though, he'd quickly moved on to thievery.

The Parasite had already claimed millions of yen in both money and property, and he was showing no signs of slowing down.

"And the only reason he can _do_ any of that is because of me," Asuka groaned.

It figured. The moment she starts trying to be a _real_ hero, to help people for the sake of helping people rather than for glory, and she immediately loses her superhuman abilities. Worse, she manages to empower a criminal in the process!

_If only there was some way I could __**stop**__ him,_ she thought, feeling that everything Joshuyo did with her powers was at least partially her responsibility.

Unfortunately, the only potential solution she had come up with was to ask Emil Hamilton to ship her that piece of kryptonite he had and hope the Parasite had gotten her weaknesses along with her strengths. She had no idea how she could contact Emil without NERV finding out about it eventually, though. Besides, kryptonite or no, she was currently in no shape to out and search for the Parasite.

She had failed in her self-appointed task, and everyone in the city was going to have to live with the consequences of her failure.

_Why are you so surprised?_ An evil little voice inside her head whispered. _You always have all the tools you need to ensure success, and you __**always**__ fail anyway. Look at EVA. You've been getting shown up by a complete rookie! Why did you think you'd be any better at being a superhero?_

"Shut up," she growled.

The voice, which had been a product of her own mind anyway, did not venture a reply. Nevertheless, she couldn't shake the nagging feeling that it had had a point. That despite her amazing array of gifts, there was some defect, some flaw, in her that guaranteed she would fail in any endeavor she really _tried_ at.

Caught by a sudden impulse, Asuka somehow mustered to energy to get out of bed, heading over to her closet. She opened it and began to look through the tall stack of tabloid magazines inside.

All of them featured either Power Girl or Supergirl on the cover. Though no one knew it but her, the former had been a glory hound interested only in getting attention. The latter was a true heroine, or at least, she liked to think so. Regardless, Asuka had done real good under both guises.

But the _Tokyo Tattler_ would never showcase the exploits of either of them ever again.

_Because I __**failed**__, _she thought, abruptly gripped by white hot fury, both at the bastard who'd stolen her powers and at herself for letting him.

With a sudden burst of violent motion, Asuka reached into the closet again, pulling out the white leotard she'd worn as Power Girl. With a growl, she grabbed the garment with both hands and pulled as hard as she could. A loud ripping sound filled the room as the white material was quickly reduced to a rag.

Tossing the remains of her old costume away contemptuously, she quickly grabbed her new one and looked at it for a long, silent moment.

_Supergirl might as well be dead. It's not like I can swoop in and save anyone without my powers,_ she thought. _Hell, who am I kidding? Supergirl __**is**__ dead._

With a growl, she grabbed the material of the blue shirt and pulled, attempting to destroy it just as she'd destroyed the Power Girl costume. However, the Kryptonian fabric was tougher than Kevlar; without her powers, she had no hope of tearing it.

"Damn costume's the only 'super' thing here," she said disgustedly, tossing it back into her closet.

Fortunately for the Second Child, she heard the door to the apartment open before she could ponder _that_ issue any further. Her eyes widening, Asuka quickly returned everything she'd taken out back into her closet and returned to her bed, feeling exhausted from her brief burst of anger and activity.

"I'm home," Shinji announced.

"Welcome home," Asuka grumbled, far too quietly for him to possibly be able to hear her.

She heard him bustling around for a couple of minutes, and she concentrated on the sounds he was making, trying to figure out what exactly he was doing. Not that she was so terribly interested; she just preferred to think about that rather than the issues she'd been pondering a moment ago.

It wasn't long before she heard a soft tap on her door. "Asuka?" Shinji called. "You awake?"

"Yes," she replied. "You can come in."

Shinji slid the screen aside with his foot and entered, carrying a tray. Upon it sat a pile of printouts (her homework, Asuka assumed), a glass of water, and a bowl. He carefully set the tray down on her bedside table.

"Can you sit up?" he asked. "Here, let me help you."

"I'm perfectly capable of sitting up in bed without your help, baka," she snapped. "Honestly! I'm sick, not dying."

"Wouldn't know it from the way you were acting this morning," Shinji couldn't help but comment.

Asuka didn't have the energy to yell at him, so she merely glared at the Third Child. The effect was somewhat diminished by the way her cheeks flushed at the reminder.

Never having been ill before, Asuka had thought she literally _was_ dying when she'd woken up sick. She had informed Misato that she probably had to go to the emergency room and had been stunned when her guardian had instead proceeded to take her temperature and then simply send her back to bed.

Asuka had _not_ appreciated it when Misato had teased her for being so dramatic. She also hadn't liked it much when the purple-haired woman had commented that Asuka's "immune system of steel" had finally let a bug through.

"So, how are you feeling?" Shinji asked eventually.

_My entire body feels heavy, frail, and slow to me. My senses have been blunted. Also, I feel like a complete idiot and a total failure,_ she thought.

"About the same as this morning," Asuka answered, which was the truth.

"Ah, well, you look a little better," Shinji said, which wasn't.

With her generally bedraggled look and cherry red nose, the Second Child's sickly appearance was almost cartoonish. Indeed, Shinji mused while forcing himself not to grin, all she needed was a hot water bottle or something on her head to complete the effect.

"Anyway," the Third Child said, "I bought you some soup on the way home. Sorry I didn't make it, but I don't really know how to make chicken noodle soup. I know that's what you think someone with a cold should have, instead of egg and sake soup." His expression made it obvious that he thought this was rather strange.

"Hmph, only you Japanese would think a concoction made from cholesterol and alcohol would make someone _healthy_," Asuka retorted.

Shinji smiled slightly. "I guess you're right," he said. "Oh, I also got you this."

He grabbed a magazine he'd folded and stuffed into his back pocket and handed it to Asuka. It was a copy of the _Tokyo Tattler._

The headline on the cover read "The Parasite's Reign of Terror Continues!"

_Great, _she thought, quickly flipping through the tabloid and skimming the headlines of the stories within.

One was "Wonder Girl Arrives at Bank Too Late to Stop Parasite," which filled her with a mixture of petty satisfaction and regret. She wanted to see the Parasite stopped, but she had to admit to herself that she'd prefer it if someone other than her chief rival in the superhero business did it.

Another story, "Where is Supergirl?" hit her like a punch to the gut, and she wished Shinji hadn't bought the magazine for her.

Nevertheless, she actually found herself rather touched by the gesture. There was no denying that it been thoughtful of him.

"Thank you," she said to him.

He smiled. "You're welcome. I thought you'd like that," he said. "Uh, I also brought your homework."

"Yay," she groaned sarcastically, picking up the printouts.

She almost went cross-eyed the moment she looked at them. There was a _lot_ of text there, and it was, of course, all in kanji, which had become hard for her to read again. Asuka hadn't noticed how much her mind had sped up or how greatly her memory had improved until the Parasite had rudely reduced her back to human norms.

"Well, I'll leave you so you can eat in peace," Shinji said. "If you need anything, just shout."

"Wait," Asuka said, stopping him in his tracks.

She didn't know what she was doing this. Maybe it was because she was feeling so tired and miserable. Maybe she had actually begun to trust him a little. Maybe she was just feverish. Whatever the reason…

"Could you help me read this?" she asked.

"Sure," he agreed at once. "I'd be happy to."

Asuka relaxed, and only upon doing so did she realize she'd been tense in the first place. Despite knowing Shinji as well as she did, a small part of her had still expected him to mock her for needing his help, she realized.

"Go get a chair or something so you can sit next to me," she ordered him.

"Right," he agreed.

"And Shinji?" she said, halting his exit from her room a second time.

"Yeah?"

"Thank you," she said softly, not quite able to make eye contact with him, "for being so nice to me. I know I've been pretty nasty to you lately, and I…I'm sorry about that."

_I was only so pissed off at you to begin with because you scared the __**hell**__ out me by almost getting yourself killed,_ she thought, but she found she couldn't make herself speak the words. It had been difficult enough to say what she already had.

Shinji smiled. "Apology accepted, Asuka."

* * *

Several hours later, the Parasite concluded that he was having a good night.

Of course, that was only to be expected; ever since his fortunate run-in with Supergirl, _every_ night was good. So was every day, for that matter.

"Let's see, where to next?" he wondered aloud as he soared through the dark night sky. "Ah, that looks good."

Ryo quickly landed in an alleyway next to a large jewelry store. With a smirk, he leaned toward the wall of the building and concentrated. Immediately, the bricks and mortar that made up the wall seemed to become transparent, and his gaze quickly settled upon the display cases. His smirk widened as he took in the glittering gold and jewels within.

"Like taking candy from a…"

He trailed off as the wall seemed to flicker before his eyes, rapidly going from solid to transparent and back again. Within seconds, it had become firmly opaque, no matter how hard he concentrated.

"What the hell?" he muttered to himself.

With a growl, he punched the bricks, then immediately wished that he hadn't. The blow left an impressive spider web of cracks in the wall, yes, but pain shot up his arm.

He hadn't felt pain in several days.

"_No!_" he hissed, unable to believe what was happening.

His gaze darted over to a dumpster that was sitting in the alley. Ryo approached it lifted it up above his head, intending to use it to smash through the wall of the jewelry store. However, though he managed to pick it up in one smooth motion, he realized the moment he had it in the air that it was heavy. Really, _really_ heavy.

His knees buckled almost instantly beneath the weight, and Ryo was forced to drop the dumpster. It hit the ground with a tremendous crash that he was sure everyone nearby had heard.

_I gotta get outta here, _he decided.

Instead of attempting to fly, the Parasite quickly darted out of the alley, heading away from the scene at a brisk pace. Fortunately for him, it was a dark, moonless night, and the few people who did happen to see him quickly retreated. He was soon able to find himself a secluded spot to duck into for a moment.

Once away from any potential witnesses, he held up his hand and studied it. There wasn't much light to see by, but he thought he'd split his knuckles open when he'd punched that wall. He was bleeding.

That confirmed it beyond any doubt, and he cursed.

"It's temporary," he said. "Damn it."

He was normal again, mortal again. Without Supergirl's amazing powers, it was only a matter of time until he lost everything he'd taken, and life started generally kicking him in the ass again.

"I need a recharge," he decided aloud. That would be simple enough; he knew _exactly_ where to go. "Time to make a house call."

* * *

Shinji yawned as he moved around the kitchen the next morning, preparing breakfast for himself and Asuka. While he was waiting for the toast to be finished, he threw a glance at the empty kitchen chairs and sighed softly. Misato had somehow gotten stuck pulling the graveyard shift the previous night, and Asuka was still sick, of course.

_It's too quiet,_ he thought, before almost laughing at the irony. Not too long ago, he'd hated the amount of noise that always seemed to exist within the Katsuragi apartment.

He couldn't make up his mind, apparently.

The toaster popped, and Shinji quickly extracted the two slices and applied a little butter to them. After placing them on a plate, he grabbed a can of apple juice from the fridge and headed toward Asuka's room.

"Asuka," he called, tapping on the door. "Are you—?"

He was interrupted when the screen was abruptly thrown open, revealing the Second Child, who was dressed in her school uniform.

"Whoa!" Shinji exclaimed, startled.

He flinched back, causing one of the slices of toast to fall off the plate he was carrying. Quick as lightning, Asuka reached out and plucked it out of the air like it was the easiest thing in the world.

"Guten Morgen, Shinji!" she said, very energetically.

It was at this point that he realized just how bright-eyed and bushy-tailed the Second Child was looking that morning. It was quite a turn around from her sorry state the day before.

"Asuka, you're not sick anymore?" he asked.

It was the kind of dumb question that would've normally drawn the redhead's ire. However, Asuka was in such a good mood that morning that she decided to let it slide. "Yup, never felt better in my life," she said.

"I'm glad," he said. "Uh, this is for you." He added, holding up the plate with the remaining slice of toast and the can of juice.

"Danke," Asuka replied, accepting the offered items and taking a large bite out of the toast.

Minutes later, the two of them had left the apartment and were heading to school. Asuka found herself mightily tempted to actually start skipping, but she resisted the urge. Mostly because she knew it would make her look childish, but also because she feared that she would sail ten feet into the air with each step; it was actually taking some effort to keep herself earthbound that morning.

_I didn't fail. Not permanently, anyway,_ Asuka thought. _I can still be a superhero._

Of course, Ryo Joshuyo was still out there, and his ability to steal energy was still dangerous. However, she suspected that he wasn't feeling nearly so super anymore, now that she was feeling better. She'd definitely have to track the guy down, but he could wait a little while.

"Hey, Shinji, have you been going to the gym while I was stuck in bed?" Asuka asked.

"Uh, no, not really," he admitted sheepishly.

"Hmph, lazy-bones," Asuka said. "Well, we'll have to go after school, then. I haven't had any exercise for days."

"Sure, Asuka, if you want to," Shinji agreed.

* * *

Cracking open a can of her favorite Yebisu, Misato flopped down on her couch and took a long drink.

"Ah," she said with satisfaction, "this is what it's all about, right, Pen-Pen?"

Her avian water fowl, who was currently nursing his own can of beer, responded with a happy "Wark!" of agreement.

"That's right!" she said as she grabbed the remote control and turned the TV on. "This is what makes doing a graveyard shift worth it: getting to loaf around the house at 4 o'clock in the afternoon."

"Wark!" Pen-Pen replied.

Of course, Misato mused as she took another drink from her can, her lazy time didn't normally last quite this long. Usually, Shinji and Asuka would be back from school by this point, but they had left a message on the answering machine to inform her that they'd be going to the gym afterwards.

"The gym. Hmph, I'll bet the only reason the two of them are always going there is to see each other get all hot and sweaty," she muttered. "Not that either one of them would _ever_ admit that, of course."

Pen-Pen, who seemed to be getting into the daytime soap opera her TV was currently displaying, just turned and gave his owner a dirty look, as though chastising her for interrupting.

"Why are we watching this crap, anyway?" Misato asked, picking up the remote again.

"_Wark!_" Pen-Pen squawked angrily, flapping his wings in great agitation and approaching her at a rapid pace.

"Okay, okay, sheesh," Misato said, putting down the remote and picking up her can once more.

Pen-Pen immediately calmed.

_Damn, bird,_ she thought sourly. _Fine, I really just wanted to get a little tipsy, anyway. The TV's just background noise._

Ignoring the little voice in her mind which was saying that was bunk, and that she'd just lost a battle of wills to a bird, the purple-haired woman took another drink from her beer. She'd need a new one soon.

_I still can't believe Asuka bounced back just like that,_ she thought. The redhead had sounded perfectly chipper on the message she'd left, but it still seemed impossible to Misato. Just yesterday, she'd been wondering if she needed to check the Second Child into the NERV Medical Ward.

Then again, when she thought about, she didn't really know why she was so incredulous. Asuka had always been _obnoxiously_ healthy. Misato remembered how she, like any other person, had occasionally come down with something while she was serving as Asuka's guardian in Germany. Despite the fact that they'd lived together, the redhead had _never_ caught her germs, not even once.

"I probably should've been more shocked that she got sick to begin with," Misato muttered to herself. "Not with how abruptly she—"

The ringing of her doorbell cut her off in mid-sentence. Pen-Pen turned and gave her a look, as if to say "_You_ get it."

This annoyed the woman of the house, but since the penguin was much too short to answer the door, she was pretty much stuck with the job anyway. She looked down at herself, just to double check that she was dressed. Upon finding that she was clad in her favorite yellow tank top and denim shorts, she rose from her couch, grumbling beneath her breath.

The doorbell rang again.

"All right, all right, I'm coming," she called, even as she wondered who it could be.

_The kids have keys, Kaji would probably be shouting suggestive things through the door by now, and Ritsuko would've called first,_ she thought. _Ugh, I hope it's not a salesman._

The doorbell rang a third time. Fortunately, Misato had reached the door by this time. With a small scowl, she quickly undid the locks and then threw the door open.

Only to find herself face-to-face with the man who had been dominating the local news for the past several days.

"Hey, there," the Parasite greeted her. "Is Asuka home?"

Caught entirely by surprise, Misato immediately followed her first instinct. Unfortunately, her first instinct was to reach for her gun, which she of course didn't carry on her when she was just watching TV at home.

The Parasite reached out and grabbed the Ops Director by the shoulders, instantly calling the white tongues of energy into being. Misato threw back her head and screamed in surprise due to the pain. Moments later, she slumped forward in his grip, barely conscious.

"Huh, guess not," the Parasite observed.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** And thus, act one of Asuka's conflict with the Parasite is concluded. I really don't have a whole lot to say here, so thanks as always to my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta readers as well.


	11. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC comics or anything associated with it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Ten:** Power Surge

There were times when Asuka managed to surprise even herself.  
This wasn't something that happened to her often, at least not if one were to exclude the incidents where each of her powers had surfaced (and really, no one could've seen _that_ one coming).

No, thanks to her healthy opinion of herself, it was rare for Asuka to be surprised by her own feats.

Yet…

"So, did you enjoy yourself, Shinji?" the redhead drawled as they left the NERV base's recreation center, just the slightest sardonic note creeping into her voice.

"Yeah. I always feel more relaxed after we go to the gym. Works off stress, I suppose," Shinji commented, toweling some sweat off his forehead

She had allowed the pilot of Unit Over to leave their latest workout with the impression that he could lift more weight than she could.

He couldn't, of course. He couldn't even come close, not when he was a mere mortal and she was practically a demigoddess. But Shinji didn't know that; all he knew was that they'd gone to the gym together, and for the first time ever, she'd used smaller weights than he had.

It was something she'd felt compelled to do several times in the past, usually to reward him for something or another that he'd done. However, when the moment of truth came, she'd always found herself adding more weight plates to whatever bar Shinji had just been using, rather than taking some off.

Until that day, anyway.

"Baka," she said to him. "You could've come here while I was sick, you know. Nothing's stopping you from going to the gym without me, and you'll never see any results from all this exercise if you're not consistent about it."

"Oh, I know that, it's just…"

"Just what?" she demanded.

He shrugged. "Well, it just wouldn't feel right to go without you," he admitted. "The gym seems like something we do together."

"Oh, I see." Asuka said, telling herself sternly that the heat in her face was _not_ a blush, could _not_ _be_ a blush.

Really.

Fortunately, they arrived at the door to the locker rooms right then, and they split up, giving Asuka a chance to retreat. Mercifully, the women's locker room was empty except for her.

"Ugh," she grumbled once she was safely inside and began to strip off her spandex workout attire.

The redhead didn't need a shower; it wasn't as if she ever worked herself into a lather while in the NERV gym, but she had to preserve the illusion. In any case, she also had to wait for Shinji to finish with his own shower, which he certainly _did_ need after his time pumping iron. She turned on the water and stepped under the spray, and, as sometimes happened to her while she was in the shower, she soon found herself getting lost in thought.

_Why did I finally let him "win"?_ She wondered. _Why now,_ _after all those other times I wanted to but just couldn't?_

The answer, she discovered, really wasn't that hard to figure out, though there was definitely a part of her that balked at it. She'd been able to do it because, in the midst of the weariness and misery she'd been experiencing while she was sick and without her superpowers, she'd allowed herself to be just the tiniest bit vulnerable to him.

He could've responded to her request for help reading kanji with mockery, but he hadn't.

So maybe—just _maybe_—she was actually starting to _trust_ the baka-hentai a tiny bit, trust him not to hurt her even if she gave him the chance.

And overall, the result had been pleasant. She'd noticed how Shinji's back had been just a little straighter after their workout, his head held just a little bit higher. It had been a subtle difference, but still a significant one. It was remarkable how much more attractive the baka was when he displayed something resembling self-confidence.

Asuka's eyes widened and she nearly slammed her head against the wall of the shower stall to remove _that_ errant thought. The only thing that stopped her was her fear that she'd accidentally end up cracking a few of the tiles.

_Yeah, too bad I was ready the whole time to knock him down a peg for being pleased about finally getting stronger than a girl,_ she thought.

Asuka frowned, pausing briefly in her task of rubbing conditioner into her copper colored tresses.

It didn't bother her that she'd had a biting remark all ready in case Shinji tried to brag about seemingly overcoming her. Even assuming she was _starting_ to trust the baka, a girl still had to be prepared.

No, what really bugged her was that, for some reason, she'd found herself _trying_ to get him to boast about lifting more than her, so she could smack him back down.

_Hell, that little line about how he'd never see results if he wasn't consistent about coming here practically __**begged**__ for him to counter with some remark about he's apparently gotten stronger than I am,_ she thought.

Why the hell had she been trying to sour things?

Why had she been trying to get Shinji to give her an excuse to push him away?

"Oh, screw this," she grumbled eventually, finding no answers to that question. "Shinji's probably just about finished anyway."

Rinsing the suds from her hair and body, Asuka turned off the water and then dried herself off. After giving her hair a quick brush, she dressed and emerged from the locker room.

Her timing was impeccable, because Shinji came out of the men's locker room a few moments later, no longer smelling of sweat and clad in his regular school uniform.

"Ready to go?" he asked.

"Yup," she replied. "Let's blow this popsicle stand."

They headed down through the halls of NERV headquarters, maintaining idle small talk the whole way. Asuka was barely paying any attention to the conversation, though, her mind still focused on her jumbled emotions. Seemingly everything had become so confusing lately.

The redhead was so lost in thought that she failed to notice the approach of the black suit brigade until they were right in front of the two teens.

"Pilot Ikari! Pilot Soryu!" the apparent leader of the small squad said. He sounded slightly out of breath, as though he and his comrades had run to get to the pilots.

"What is it?" she demanded, wondering what could be so urgent that it would bring Section Two running.

"It's Major Katsuragi," one answered. "She's been kidnapped."

"What?" Shinji gasped.

"Who did it?" Asuka demanded, wondering who in the city would be stupid enough to kidnap one of NERV's most important officers. "What happened?"

"It was the Parasite," the Section Two agent answered grimly. "We haven't confirmed all the details yet, but it seems that he showed up at your apartment. He is currently holding the Major hostage in a building near the edge of the city."

"Given the very real possibility that you were his true target, we're going to have to keep an eye on you both until this crisis passes," another agent added.

"Uh, all r—" Shinji began.

"No way!" Asuka snapped. "I am _not_ about to just let you coral the two of us into some dark room somewhere so you can keep us 'safe'!"

"Pilot Soryu—" the lead agent began.

"Are we prisoners?" the redhead demanded.

"Of course not."

"Then why should we have to go with you?" Asuka pressed.

The lead agent was starting to look flustered. As a rule, most members of Section Two protected the Children from a discreet distance; he wasn't really familiar with the German pilot's personality, and he hadn't expected anywhere near this level of recalcitrance.

Of course, as Section Two was almost uniformly composed of thugs in suits, dealing with a stubborn teenager normally wouldn't have been a big issue. However, every member of NERV's secret police force knew better than to rough up the pilots without explicit orders from the Commander to do so.

"It's for your protection," the lead agent protested weakly.

"Look," Asuka said, putting her hands on her hips, her tone finally hinting at something that resembled reasonableness, "how about this? We promise to stay inside headquarters like a good little boy and girl until this situation passes. Unless you think a big _purple_ man can just waltz into NERV Central and get at us without security noticing him."

The lead agent sighed. "Fine," he relented, "but _don't_ leave the facility. I don't care _how_ much you want a breath of fresh air."

"Yeah, yeah, we got it," Asuka said dismissively. "C'mon, Shinji." With that, she spun on her heel and walked off.

The Third Child shrugged and followed her. "I'm going to the cafeteria," he announced as they left the black suits behind. "There's a TV in there, and I'll bet what's happening to Misato is on the news. You coming?"

"In a minute," Asuka said. "I think I left something back in the locker room."

* * *

Soon afterwards, Supergirl was flying through the air over Tokyo-3, having easily slipped out of NERV headquarters with the use of her powers. The Girl of Steel reached out with her superhuman senses, searching for the building where the Parasite was holding Misato hostage, berating herself all the while.

_Stupid, stupid, __**stupid!**__ I should've pretended to still be sick this morning and stayed home from school! That way I would've had the whole day to track down that bastard's purple ass! _She thought, clenching her teeth. _But no, I was so sure that he could wait!_

She had never once thought—never suspected—that the Parasite might have stolen the knowledge inside her head along with the powers of her half-Kryptonian body. Because of that, Misato was currently in grave danger.

Supergirl was so caught up in her self recriminations that she almost failed to spot the building she was searching for, even though it was currently surrounded by a small fleet of police cars, red and blue lights flashing conspicuously.

The Girl of Steel quickly came down for a landing before the structure. The massive police presence had already attracted a large group of curious onlookers, and several of them pointed up at her as she descended. Supergirl heard several people exclaiming that she had returned just in time.

For once, she ignored her admiring fans entirely, landing well behind the barrier that the police had hastily put up to keep the crowd at bay.

"Who's in charge here?" she demanded, projecting as much authority as she could.

Something she did mostly by emulating Misato, actually.

One of the cops immediately stepped forward. "I am, Supergirl," he answered. "I'm Captain Oogata, and, boy, are we glad to see you." He confessed.

"Thanks," Supergirl said absently. "Explain to me what's going on here. I know that the Parasite's holding someone hostage in there, but that's about it."

"Guess I better start at the beginning, then," the cop said. "About an hour ago, someone spotted the Parasite heading this way. He was armed with a gun, and he was dragging along this woman we later identified as NERV's Operations Director."

"Dragging her?" Supergirl interrupted, doing her best to not think about what that might mean.

"She was alive," Oogata replied. "Eyewitnesses said she seemed barely conscious, however."

"Okay," Supergirl said, trying not to show just how relieved she was. "Go on."

"It was strange that the Parasite decided to bother with a gun or a hostage. He certainly hasn't needed any of that in the past," Oogata continued, "but a gun's a gun. People backed off, and when he went into the building, everybody already inside was glad to evacuate when he fired a few rounds into the ceiling. We arrived a few minutes later, and it's been a standoff ever since."

"Has he made any demands?" Supergirl asked, though she already had a pretty good idea what her foe wanted.

"Not as such," Oogata said. "He's said that he wants to talk, but there's only one person he's willing to let inside the building for that. Said that if anybody else goes inside, he'll kill his hostage."

"Let me guess," Supergirl said, "the person he wants to speak with…"

"Is you," Oogata said. "Of course, I told him that we can't just make you appear whenever we want to, but he said he'd wait. Guess it paid off for him."

"Mmm," Supergirl grunted absently, focusing her attention on the building.

It wasn't exactly the sort of place she'd expect a punk like the Parasite to hole up; she would've been far less surprised if he'd gone with an abandoned warehouse or something cliché like that. The structure he'd actually picked, though, was an utterly unremarkable, though well maintained, box of a building.

Yet when she tried to use her X-ray vision to see exactly where her enemy was hiding, and where he was keeping her guardian, Supergirl found that large portions of the structure were hidden from her. She couldn't see the Parasite or Misato.

"What is this place?" she asked Oogata.

"It's a private research facility called AlphaTech," the cop answered. "It's a radiobiology lab."

_Well, that would certainly explain all the lead,_ the Girl of Steel thought, repressing a scowl. Clearly, the Parasite had either learned about that particular weakness of hers while he'd had her powers, or he'd plucked that information out of her head, too.

"What are you going to do, Supergirl?" Oogata asked.

"I'm going in, of course," she replied with a frown, surprised he'd even felt the need to inquire about that.

Lead or no lead, the Parasite had her guardian in there, and she _was_ Supergirl, after all. She wasn't about to walk away from this.

"We'll cover all the exits," Oogata said. "Make sure he doesn't escape."

"You do that," she said, striding toward the main entrance to the building.

The crowd cheered as they watched their heroine moving to confront the lion in its improvised den, and Supergirl sighed very softly. She normally liked applause, but it was a given that the purple man knew she was coming now.

_Like he wouldn't be just waiting and watching anyway,_ she thought as she pushed the glass doors open and strode inside.

The lobby looked just like that of any office building anywhere, but the near total silence loaned an eerie atmosphere to the place. The air conditioner hummed in the background, and everything looked clean and orderly, but there wasn't another soul to be seen. A bank of small monitors behind the reception desk had once displayed live feeds from the building's security cameras, but the Parasite had smashed all the screens.

_Clever,_ she thought with some grudging respect. _But probably not __**his**__ cleverness._

If the Parasite absorbed knowledge from everyone he drained, then he'd gotten Misato's knowledge of strategy and tactics. That was probably how the creep had even made it this far, and it meant he was a lot more dangerous than he otherwise would be; Supergirl had often spoken of her guardian's slovenly habits with disdain, but she had always respected the woman's keen military mind.

_Okay,_ she thought, mentally taking stock of the situation as she slowly proceeded deeper into the building, _this is a trap. That much is painfully obvious. The purple people eater plans to ambush me so he can steal my powers again. Misato's just the bait. He probably won't hurt her, because he wouldn't want to risk me hurting __**him**__ in case this "brilliant" scheme of his goes belly up._

That her guardian was most likely unharmed, and would probably remain that way, was some comfort to Supergirl. However, even she didn't really enjoy waltzing into an obvious trap. Despite her best efforts, her heart started to speed up.

_Gott! Pull it together, girl!_ She commanded herself. _Without your powers, the idiot is just a normal man! And he'll stay that way so long as you don't let him touch you! You can take him out easily without laying a finger on him! Now get your ass in gear and save Misato already!_

Emboldened somewhat, Supergirl surveyed the premises again, trying to figure out where a guy who'd gotten a textbook's worth of knowledge on tactics crammed into his head (but wasn't otherwise too bright), would lie in ambush.

"Higher ground, probably, which means the top floor," she muttered to herself. "He needs some big pile of lead to hide behind for his plan to have any chance of working, so that narrows it down, and he'd want a room with only one entrance. Let's see…"

She climbed the stairs to the third of the building's four floors, then did her best to look through the ceiling above her. It didn't take the Girl of Steel long to pick out a handful of rooms that looked like they'd appeal to her foe.

Her heart hammered as she approached the first potential ambush point, and Supergirl was finally forced to admit to herself that she was afraid.

She didn't like it, and she wasn't used to it. The Girl of Steel was accustomed to dealing with thugs and petty criminals, foes who had no chance whatsoever at besting her. Dealing with the Parasite was new; she was vulnerable when she fought the Angels, too, but at least then she was riding around in a seventy meter tall war machine.

If this went poorly, she would be stripped of her superpowers again, and this time she wouldn't even be able to say she didn't know what the Parasite was capable of doing to her.

_Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice…_

Of course, that wasn't even the worst part. Now that the Parasite knew there was an expiration date on the power transfer, there was no chance that he'd just fly off again. No, he would make a point of keeping her around, forcing her to be the battery that powered his never-ending reign of terror.

In other words, she truly would have failed in her quest to be a true heroine then.

_Ugh!_ _Suck it up, girl. You're no coward,_ she told herself sternly.

With one swift movement, Supergirl rushed into the room where she suspected Parasite might be hiding, zipping to the other side of the lead housing she suspected her enemy might be hiding behind.

No one was there.

The Girl of Steel huffed in annoyance, sending a puff of air upwards to blow around the bangs on her blond wig.

"Well, that was anticlimactic," she grumbled.

Annoying though it might have been though to psyche herself up just to find nothing, however, Supergirl found it much easier to investigate the next room, and then the next one after that.

_Is he even here?_ She wondered, frowning as she entered the last room. _Maybe he didn't decide to wait at the high ground._

Then she rounded the corner of the lab's very large lead castle, a structure composed entirely of large bricks of lead, and found her quarry. A large drop of sweat appeared on the back of her head at the sight of him.

If the Parasite had ever been ready to pounce, he wasn't any longer. The chemically altered individual had apparently grown bored of waiting for his prey to show up, because he was leaning against the lead structure, looking like he was nodding off and obviously not paying any attention to his surroundings. Misato lay on the floor nearby. She looked barely conscious, but Supergirl could see her chest rise and fall with her slow and steady breathing.

Supergirl cleared her throat, and the Parasite's head immediately snapped up, his eyes widening as he saw her. With a wordless growl, the purple man ran toward her, hands outstretched.

The Girl of Steel pursed her lips and blew, unleashing a blast of freezing air. The Parasite's movements immediately slowed to a crawl as a layer of frost appeared on his skin. He stopped dead before he even managed to halve the distance between them, frozen solid.

"Ha!" the Girl of Steel laughed derisively, crossing her arms over her chest. "And here I thought this was going to be difficult! I mean, you had a pretty respectable setup here. Your plan had a real chance of working, but…"

She trailed off, noticing something she hadn't before. Misato wasn't the Parasite's only prisoner.

"Oh shit," she whispered.

* * *

_Thirty minutes earlier…_

Rei Ayanami was in her apartment doing homework when there was a knock at her door.

She looked up from her textbook, frowning very slightly with mild surprise. This was not a common occurrence for her. Indeed, until the Third Child had arrived in Tokyo-3, no one had ever come to call on her at her home before.

_That was not Shinji's knock,_ she thought. The pilot of Unit One tended to tap lightly on her door, producing a sound that was barely loud enough for her to take notice. The person waiting outside her apartment, on the other hand, had pounded, demanding her immediate attention.

Yet the First Child immediately got up to answer her door, heedless of the possibility that the person on the other side might be someone who wished her only ill (given the part of the city she lived in, there was a very real chance that this was the case).

An anonymous member of Section Two stood outside her apartment.

"Yes?" Rei asked.

"Pilot Ayanami," the man spoke, "I'm here to inform you that there is a situation unfolding downtown."

"An Angel?" she asked with a barely perceptible frown, wondering why she had not been called, if that was the case.

The Section Two agent shook his head. "No," he answered. "Major Katsuragi has been kidnapped by the Parasite. He's currently holding her hostage in a building downtown. We suspect that the pilots who live at her apartment might have been the real target, so we're increasing security on all of you until this situation is resolved."

"I see," Rei responded, the very picture of calm, even as her mind whirled at this surprising revelation.

"We've increased our presence in and around your apartment building," the agent added. "All that we require is that you remain in your home until the Parasite has been dealt with."  
"I understand," she agreed immediately, "I will stay inside."

The Section Two agent nodded, then departed from her apartment's doorway without a word, closing the door after himself.

Alone once again, Rei paused, considering her options. It would be unusually risky to leave her apartment at the current time, given the increased Section Two presence. She was still fairly confident she could slip out undetected, but if she should fail, the consequences would be dire indeed.

_But Major Katsuragi is in danger,_ she thought. She and the Operations Director had not had very much to do with one another, outside of their professional relationship, but the purple-haired woman had always been polite and respectful to her. Also, the abduction of an important NERV officer was not something she felt she could ignore.

Especially considering how unlikely it seemed that Supergirl would appear to deal with the situation; no one had seen or heard from the Girl of Steel in days.

Her mind made up, Rei walked across her small apartment, going over to a large trunk she kept in the corner. After opening the heavy duty padlock she used to ensure that no nosey Section Two agent "investigated" the contents of the box while she was away, Rei lifted the lid and removed the red and blue leotard of the Wonder Girl.

* * *

_Present time…_

Supergirl noticed her fellow superwoman, laying on the floor and tied up in her own golden lasso, just a moment too late.

With a burst of strength that was not his own, the Parasite burst free of his subzero restraints, sending tiny shards of ice flying in all directions. He lunged at the Girl of Steel, throwing his arms around her in a great bear hug.

_Not again!_ Supergirl thought, crying out in pain as the white tongues of energy burst into being, again transferring her superpowers to him.

Almost immediately, she started struggling against him, trying to break free of his grip and end the power drain. Unfortunately, "almost immediately" proved to be too late. With Wonder Girl's might already in his possession, he didn't need to steal much of Supergirl's own strength before he was powerful than she. Try as she might, the Girl of Steel couldn't escape his hold.

Finally, he released her, and Supergirl crumpled to the floor. Yet she couldn't help notice that she didn't feel quite as weak as she had after the first time he'd stolen her powers.

"Oh yeah!" Parasite exclaimed triumphantly. "_That's_ the good stuff!"

From her position on the floor, Supergirl looked up at him, her eyes full of nothing but intense loathing.

_I'm __**so**__ glad to hear that my powers are apparently tastier than Wonder Girl's over there,_ she thought sarcastically.

"I'm more powerful than _ever_ now!" Parasite crowed, flexing his arms. "Nobody will ever stop Ryo Joshuyo from doing _exactly_ what he wants! **Nobody!**"

_Did he…get bigger?_ She wondered with a frown, noticing that his shoulders seemed to have grown broader. There appeared to be more muscle on his arms, chest, and legs than there had been mere minutes ago.

Then she wondered what the hell she was doing just laying on the ground, doing nothing. Despite how weary and leaden her body suddenly felt, Supergirl managed to scramble to her feet and make a break for the door.

However, the Parasite wasn't _that_ wrapped up in appreciating his new level of power. He reached out, grabbing hold of her cape and instantly halting her retreat.

"Oh no," he said, shaking a finger at her like a lecturing parent, "I'm not letting you walk away this time, Supes. You and Wonder Girl here are both coming with me. You're both going to make me super strong _forever_."

Despite not wanting to show fear to her enemy, Supergirl couldn't help but shudder. Part of her had held the faint hope that Joshuyo would be just stupid enough to take her power and run again, rather than take her prisoner. However, that had just been shot to hell, and now her worst fear was coming true.

"Just don't hurt Katsuragi," she beseeched the Parasite.

The purple man chuckled. "Why would I bother with her?" he asked. "You two are the ones I need."

Still holding onto Supergirl's cape, he reached down and grabbed the golden rope that was tied around Wonder Girl. With both superwomen secured, he began to fly upwards, crashing gracelessly through the roof of the building.

"Hey, watch it!" Supergirl snapped, grimacing as bits of debris rained down on her painfully.

"Shut up," Parasite growled at her. "You're not in charge here. _I_ am."

Supergirl scowled but didn't dare to say anything. Or at least, she didn't, until Parasite began to descend toward the street and the waiting crowd of people clustered outside the building.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

His only answer was a smirk.

"Oh my God!" someone in the crowd exclaimed as he finally spotted the purple man and his two hostages. "Look!"

The large group of people seemed to collectively gasp in horror as they looked up and saw the unthinkable: the city's superhuman champions, defeated, while the Parasite hovered over them in triumph.

"You see this?" Parasite demanded, holding his prisoners forward. "You see what I did? Not even these two could beat me! You people have _no chance_ of ever stopping me!"

Nobody on the ground seemed willing to disagree with that assessment, not even the squad of police officers.

_Damn it,_ Supergirl thought, burning with humiliation as she looked down at the sea of terrified faces. The feelings of failure she'd suffered while she'd been ill and powerful returned with a vengeance. _I'll get you for this, Ryo Joshuyo._

Then, mercifully, the Parasite took off through the air, leaving the crowd of horrified onlookers behind them. Supergirl winced; with her invincibility gone, the cold wind bit painfully into her flesh, and the speed at which the Parasite was soaring through the air made it difficult for her to breathe. Glancing to the side, she noticed that Wonder Girl didn't seem to be faring any better than she was. In fact, the Amazon actually looked much worse than Supergirl felt.

_It would just serve this dummkopf right if he killed us, then he'd only have a few days before he powers down for good,_ Supergirl thought spitefully.

It didn't take long for them to arrive at the Parasite's destination, which turned out to be the cliché abandoned warehouse Supergirl had been expecting earlier. She might have laughed if not for the awful position she and Wonder Girl were in now.

There was an open window in the side the large structure, which was easily large enough for the Parasite to fly through with his two prisoners. However, the purple man instead soared directly through a _closed_ window next to it, causing the glass to shatter into a million pieces. He even managed to graze the frame with his shoulder, distorting the metal somewhat.

"Watch it, you idiot!" Supergirl snapped. She hadn't gotten any cuts from the glass, but she easily could have. Wonder Girl hadn't been quite so lucky; there were a number of red scratches on her pale skin.

"Oops," Parasite replied, not sounding the least bit contrite.

The inside of the warehouse was covered with an inch of dust and cobwebs, making it obvious that the place hadn't been used in some time, not by any business, at least. However, it was equally obvious that Parasite had been using the building as a hideout for a while; there was an enormous pile of money, jewelry, and even several gold ingots in the center of the floor. All the loot he'd collected in his unstoppable, days long crime spree would've taken most people ten lifetimes to spend.

_And what the hell is he even collecting all of it for?_ Supergirl wondered. _Does he think he can just waltz into a store and buy stuff like a regular person? Has he even thought things out that far?_

The Parasite descended toward the ground, putting his two hostages down just long enough to retrieve a long chain. With it, he tied Supergirl firmly to a thick pipe that was protruding from one of the walls. Then he also trapped Wonder Girl there as well, using the Amazon's own golden lasso this time.

"Okay, I think you both can guess how this is going to go," Joshuyo said. "I go and do whatever the hell I damn well please, and every day or so, I come back here for a recharge. You two be good, don't try to escape, and I might even think about feeding you."

"This isn't going to work," Supergirl told him.

"Eh?"

"This whole scheme of yours," she elaborated, trying to sound as matter-of-fact as she could. "Somehow, it'll all fall apart eventually, and then your fun will be over."

"Really? And who's going to stop me? You?" Parasite asked with a sneer.

Supergirl didn't respond, instead just glaring at him coldly. Joshuyo chuckled, clearly very pleased with himself.

"See you later, ladies," he said, waving them a cheerful goodbye. "Daddy's got some things to do."

He took off with such speed that he left a great gust of wind in his wake, mussing the blond strands of Supergirl's wig. This time, the Parasite managed to fly through one of the open windows, but he scraped against the frame with his shoulder again as he departed.

Supergirl waited for a few seconds before she turned and spoke to Wonder Girl.

"Well, I hope you're happy with yourself," she hissed.

"Huh?" the Amazon rose her head to meet the Girl of Steel's gaze. She looked utterly exhausted.

"This is all your fault!" Supergirl snapped angrily. "The idiot demanded to speak to me back there, not you! If you hadn't stuck your nose where it didn't belong and let him steal your powers, I could've defeated him easily!"

Wonder Girl lowered her head. "I am sorry," she softly.

Supergirl sighed. She would've liked to keep venting her rage at the other superwoman, but it was impossible to stay mad with Wonder Girl looking so miserable and defeated.

_Besides, you're not exactly being the hero Jor-El or Emil would want you to be right now,_ a little voice from the back of her mind added.

She scowled and silently cursed the expectations of extraterrestrial grandfathers, but she ceased berating Wonder Girl all the same.

"What happened to you, anyway?" she asked in a much more reasonable tone. "How'd he manage to drain you?"

"Oh," Wonder Girl said, looking sheepish, "you see…"

* * *

_Earlier…_

Wonder Girl slipped in through one of the building's windows, removing the cloak of concealment from around her form once she was safety inside. The enchanted item was cursed to fail at certain, inopportune moments, and as such, she was loathe to use it. However, it had been the only way she could sneak inside without drawing the attention of the crowd outside the building. Fortunately, it had not chosen to fail that day.

After carefully folding the cloak and stuffing it into a small pouch she'd attached to her belt, the Amazon began to carefully explore the facility, hovering above the floor so as to avoid making a sound.

_Now, where is he keeping the Major?_ She wondered as she went through the building, carefully exploring each room as she went.

Then she heard the faint creak of floorboards shifting underfoot, and her head snapped in the direction the sound had come from. Barely daring to breathe, the Amazon crept forward.

_I have never dealt with a hostage situation before,_ she mused as she went. _It is quite…nerve-wracking._

Arriving at the room where she believed the sound had come from, Wonder Girl carefully poked her head inside. However, she was unable to see if her quarry was there; there was a large structure composed of lead blocks sitting in the room, and anyone could've easily hidden behind it.

The Amazon took a deep breath in through her nose, remaining cautious about not making a single sound. She let it out slowly…and then she shot forward at top speed, moving around the lead structure in order to see anyone hiding behind it.

With a growl, the Parasite lunged at her, leaping forward with his arms outstretched. However, Wonder Girl was fast, and the move hadn't exactly taken her by surprise. She managed to dodge, and he crashed to the floor in an undignified heap.

The Amazon spared just a moment to glance at the Major. Misato looked like she'd had better days; indeed, the woman appeared to be barely conscious, but she was at least alive.

Then the Parasite was moving again. "You're the not the one I was waiting for," he growled, raising the Heckler & Koch he had taken from the Ops Director and firing off several rounds.

Wonder Girl raised her arms, easily deflecting the slugs with the silver bracers on her arms. The _plink! plink!_ sound of metal impacting metal at high speed joined the reports of the pistol, which were thunderous in the enclosed room.

Then the gun clicked empty. With a scowl, the Parasite threw the weapon at her. Wonder Girl didn't even bother to block the improvised missile, allowing it to bounce harmlessly off of her.

His frustration mounting, the Parasite released a wordless growl and took a swing at the Amazon. She dodged him without difficultly, surprised at how slowly he was moving; she had spent much of the last few days attempting to stop his reign of terror over Tokyo-3, and every time she'd come close to catching up with him, he'd evaded her.

_What has happened to his powers?_ She wondered. _Has he lost them somehow?_

Wonder Girl knew that the Parasite had only become a real problem for the city after an encounter with Supergirl, the exact details of which were sketchy. She wondered if that was what this was all about. Was he just trying to get her to appear, so he could reenact whatever had happened between them the first time?

Her train of thought was interrupted by another punch from the Parasite. Wonder Girl easily ducked beneath his right hook and, acting on reflexes drilled into her during her Amazonian training, retaliated with a punch of her own. The results surprised her.

The Parasite was knocked off his feet and thrown into a nearby wall, despite the fact that the Amazon had carefully moderated the amount of force she'd used, but that wasn't what took her off guard.

No, what did it was that punching him hurt. In the instant that her knuckles had made contact with the side of his face, bolts of crackling white energy had bloomed into being, and it had hurt.

_What in the world?_ She wondered, looking down at her fist.

It was that hesitation that damned her. The Parasite sprang back to his feet far more quickly than she would have expected and grabbed a brick from the lead structure in the center of the room, then swung it directly at her head.

Wonder Girl moved to dodge again, but this time her estimation of how fast she was—as well as her estimation of how slow _he_ was—was just a tad off. The metal brick impacted directly with the side of her head.

The blow wasn't enough to really hurt the Amazon, let alone fracture her skull, but it did send her staggering. Parasite seemed to be stronger than he'd been a moment ago.

The purple man leaped at her, wrapping his arms around her, and Wonder Girl screamed. White energy blazed into existence around them.

Seconds later, Parasite released the Amazon. With a low groan, she slumped limply toward the floor, resting on her knees. It took all her remaining energy not to face plant directly onto the cold, dirty tiles.

Parasite threw his head back and burst into gales of laughter, apparently at some joke only he understood.

"Oh man," he wheezed out between guffaws, "oh man, that's hysterical. The two of you…and you both have _no_ idea...!"

The Amazon might have wondered what he was talking about, if she hadn't been busy wondering how she might escape when she felt so utterly drained and so pitifully weak.

"Well, now, Wonder Girl," Joshuyo said, crouching down to look the exhausted Amazon in the eye, "I wasn't expecting you to show up, but it looks like it'll all work out in the end…"

She couldn't work up the strength to offer more than a token resistance as he seized her golden lasso and began to tie her up with it.

* * *

_Present…_

Supergirl frowned. "What did he think was so funny?"

"I do not know," Wonder Girl said, shaking her head.

"Well, whatever," the Girl of Steel sighed, "I guess it's not important, anyway. All that matters is finding a way out of this mess…"

The Amazon looked up curiously as she heard the chains on Supergirl rattling. The Girl of Steel was on her feet and pulling against her bonds.

"What are you doing?" Wonder Girl asked, a small frown on her face. "Surely you cannot—"

"He didn't get all my superpowers," Supergirl said through clenched teeth, her whole body straining with the effort to break free.

"What?"  
"I said he didn't get all my powers," Supergirl hissed, growing annoyed with how slowly the Amazon seemed to be catching on. "I still have some left. If we're lucky, it should be just enough to break these damn chains!"

"How is that possible?" Wonder Girl asked.

"I think," Supergirl grunted, "I think that both of us were…just too much for him. He didn't have 'room' for so much power, so he ended up leaving me with some this time."

Wonder Girl's expression turned thoughtful. "I suppose that is possible," she said, as the metal links began to groan in protest.

Just as the Amazon started getting her hopes up, Supergirl sagged against the chains, panting heavily. "No good," she groaned. "I'm not strong enough to break these things."

Wonder Girl lowered her head. "Then we are trapped here."

"Like hell we are!" Supergirl snapped, her ire rising again, despite her best efforts to contain it. "Honestly, Wonder Girl, is the power drain affecting you, or do you always give up this easily?"

The other superwoman raised her head, and the Girl of Steel saw a spark in Wonder Girl's crimson eyes. "An Amazon never surrenders," she said.

"Good," Supergirl said, more pleased at finally getting a rise out of the other young woman than she was with her words.

"So what are we going to do?" Wonder Girl asked, struggling experimentally against her own bonds. "I do not think I can get out of this."

"I switch tactics," Supergirl answered.

The Girl of Steel began to pull against her chains again, but this time, she concentrated all her efforts on the metal links holding her right arm. Then she concentrated, trying to summon her heat vision. Her head immediately felt as though it was going to explode, but the now familiar sensation of warmth building behind her eyeballs told her she could make it work. She just had to keep pushing.

_Come on!_ She thought, grimacing with the effort she was expending. If this didn't work, she was out of ideas. _**Come on!**_

Finally, twin beams of intense heat burst forth from her eyes, striking one of the metal links. Normally, she could've completely melted it without much effort, but with her powers so badly diminished, the results were slower to unfold. The metal turned red, then orange, then white. A moment later, Supergirl saw it stretching.

"Almost there," she grunted, and somehow managed to apply one last burst of strength.

The metal finally snapped, and Supergirl's abruptly liberated arm pitched forward, sending the remaining piece of chain whipping across the room.

"Yes!" she exclaimed, panting heavily.

"You did it," Wonder Girl observed.

"You don't have to sound so surprised," Supergirl grumbled.

"I apologize."

Supergirl shook her head, deciding she was exasperated with her fellow superwoman already.

_Honestly, she's almost as bad as the First,_ she thought.

After taking several moments to recover, Supergirl set about liberating the rest of her limbs from their restraints. Then she went over to the Amazon and untied her.

"Thank you," Wonder Girl said as Supergirl handed her the golden lasso. "Now what do we do?"

Supergirl bit her lower lip, realizing that that was a very good question. She hadn't really thought out a course of action beyond the immediate concern of getting free.

Her first instinct was to depart from the warehouse, assume her regular identity, and to wait until the power transfer reversed itself again. Then taking down the Parasite would once more be an easy task.

Unfortunately, there was a huge problem with that. The Parasite knew who she was, and presumably knew who Wonder Girl was, too. Once he realized that they'd flown the coop, he would come after them aggressively, and this time he was armed with a truly obscene amount of power. They couldn't just go to their homes; that would be the first place he would look for them.

Supergirl didn't know about Wonder Girl's alter ego, but if Asuka Langley Soryu vanished for several days, people would ask some hard questions of her once she reappeared.

_And even if we __**were**__ willing to do that, he has my super senses. He'd probably still find us,_ Supergirl thought.

In addition to all that, something about the idea of just running away niggled at her. It wasn't a strategic concern, like her worries about being captured again, but it very much went to the core of who and what she tried to be when she put on her cape and wore the family crest of the House of El on her chest.

_Almost every time I've fought a bad guy so far, it's been easy. Even when I fought Brainiac, I went in feeling pretty damn confident that I was powerful enough to beat him,_ she thought, looking down at her gloved hand.

Could she really call herself a hero if she only fought when it was easy? When she felt assured of victory? If she ran away whenever there was real danger, and the odds were actually against her?

She didn't think so. She knew she wouldn't take half so much pride in her skill at piloting EVA, or in her college degree, if those things had come _easily_. She didn't think that things would be much different where being Supergirl was concerned.

"I don't know about you, but I'm going after him," she declared. "I'm not going to let him use the city as his personal playground anymore."

Supergirl honestly wouldn't have thought less of Wonder Girl if the Amazon had opted not to go along. The half-Kryptonian at least had _some_ of her powers left, but the blue haired superwoman had obviously been drained far more thoroughly; it looked like she was struggling just to remain awake.

"I will come, too." She said resolutely.

"Okay," Supergirl agreed, trying to hide her surprise. "Now let's see if I can even get us to that creep…"

She jumped, and was initially delighted when she sailed a good fifteen feet into the air, thinking that her ability to fly remained largely intact. However, once at that height, she quickly stopped gaining altitude, despite her attempts to go higher. Supergirl hovered there for a second, but she could quickly feel gravity regaining its hold. Cursing under her breath, the Girl of Steel actually began to flap her arms for a moment as she tried to stay in air. However, it didn't work, and it made her look silly, so she stopped, allowing herself to return to the floor. She landed on her feet with a hard but not painful impact.

"Damn," she grumbled, then turned to Wonder Girl. "I don't suppose you can still fly?"

The Amazon nodded. "I can."

Supergirl blinked, unable to mask her surprise. She didn't think that Wonder Girl had _any_ of her powers left. "Really?"

The blue-haired girl hovered a foot off the ground to demonstrate. "My ability to fly comes from my magic boots," she explained.

_Magic boots?_ Supergirl thought dubiously, then mentally shrugged it off. It wasn't really important, and it wasn't like _she_ had much room to talk. She was the daughter of a space alien, after all.

"Okay," she said. "Do you think you can carry me?"

This, she knew, was going to be the hard part. Parasite had done such a complete number on Wonder Girl that the Amazon looked shaky supporting just her own weight. Supergirl knew what it was like to feel so badly weakened and drained, and she wasn't at all sure she would've even attempted to carry someone roughly her own size in that state.

_I could probably cover a lot of ground by jumping,_ Supergirl mused, already planning on what she would do when the Amazon said no. _I'd look ridiculous, but still, it would be—_

"If that is what is required, I will do it," the blue haired superwoman said.

"All right, Wonder Girl!" Supergirl cheered, her respect for the Amazon growing substantially. "Then what are we waiting for? Let's get going!"

Wonder Girl allowed the Girl of Steel to climb up on her back. The Amazon wobbled frighteningly on her feet at first, and Supergirl thought that her weight would cause Wonder Girl to collapse. However, she eventually steadied herself, adjusting to the burden, and took off into the air, carefully flying through the open window.

_I must look completely ridiculous riding around on Wonder Girl's back like this!_ Supergirl couldn't help but fret as they flew over the city together. _Gott, I hope nobody manages to get a picture of us like this._

Then she almost laughed, realizing that this was probably the first time she'd found herself explicitly hoping to _avoid_ cameras while in her Supergirl persona.

"How will we know where the Parasite is?" Wonder Girl asked.

"Well, I think following the trail of destruction would be a good place to start," Supergirl commented dryly, pointing at a thin trail of smoke that was slowly rising above the city.

"Right," Wonder Girl agreed at once, changing directions to head for the source of the smoke.

It wasn't long before they managed to find the fire, the cause of which was immediately obvious. Someone had knocked down a power pole, sending it crashing into a nearby building where the resultant sparks had apparently set the structure ablaze.

That same someone had then proceeded the barge into the bank across the street and rob it with an unnecessarily large amount of violence. The entire front wall of the structure was all but entirely gone, reduced to rubble, while the circular door to the vault had been ripped out and tossed carelessly into the street. The thing had to be at least two feet thick and had a diameter three times greater than that, and it looked like Parasite had just flicked it there as easily a normal person might toss a coin. A car had been crushed beneath it.

"He was not so destructive before," Wonder Girl commented, frowning.

"He's got more power than he knows what to do with," Supergirl replied. "I think it's making him clumsy. Could you head down for a minute? I wanna talk to somebody down there." She added.

Wonder Girl just nodded and began to descend, stopping when she was only about two feet above the ground. Supergirl didn't bother to leave her perch. A number of people were loitering around, looking shell shocked. The Girl of Steel whistled sharply, getting their attention.

Mercifully, nobody asked why she was clinging to Wonder Girl, or even reached for a cell phone camera.

"Hey, anybody here know what direction the purple people eater took off in?" Supergirl asked.

Several people pointed westward.

"Thanks!" the Girl of Steel called. "Let's go, Wonder Girl." She said to her current companion.

"What about the fire?" Wonder Girl asked.

"Let the fire department deal with it!" Supergirl hissed quietly. "The whole damn city's going to look like this if we don't stop that idiot!"

"I…" Wonder Girl hesitated, then nodded. "Yes."

She took off again, once more gaining altitude and heading west. The Parasite's trail from that point on proved almost comically easily to follow; the energy thief had left shattered concrete, broken glass, fires, destroyed cars, and just general chaos in his wake wherever he went. The man was almost as destructive as an Angel.

"Okay," Supergirl spoke up after a few minutes of pursuit, "we must be getting close by now."

"Yes," Wonder Girl agreed. "Do you have a plan?"

Supergirl nodded, grinning slyly. "We're going to put ten pounds of flour into a five pound bag. I don't think that'll be good for him."

"How do you intend to do that?" Wonder Girl asked.

The Girl of Steel's grin widened as she explained her plan.

* * *

"Oh, baby, where have you been all my life?" Parasite wondered aloud.

The purple-skinned man stood on the lot of a luxury car dealership, walking in a slow circle around a bright red, brand new Ferrari. Having chased away everyone else at the lot, he was able to survey the new love of his life in peace.

Of course, owning and driving a car was both unnecessary and a rather complicated proposition for a man in his position. He could fly, so he didn't need it, and it was rather hard to show off the wheels when everyone made a habit of running away at the mere sight of him.

_Man, chicks will totally dig this!_ He decided, not pausing for a moment to think about the details.

Loading the considerable amount of loot he'd already collected earlier into the vehicle, the Parasite reached down and picked the thing up over his head as gently as he could. Even so, the chassis bent in his grip, and he winced.

_Damn! Why does this keep happening?_ He wondered in frustration. _Everything seems so freaking fragile lately!_

"Well, I'm sure it'll buff right out," he said to himself consolingly, "and even if it doesn't, I can always get another one."

He took to the air, effortlessly carrying the vehicle into the sky with him. It was definitely time to take a trip back to his hideout and drop off his new stuff before going for more.

Yet before he could get very far at all, something slammed into the side of his new ride, upsetting his grip on it. With a growl, the Parasite shifted the weight of his Ferrari to the side to compensate, but he overdid it. Before he could correct again, the metal of the chassis groaned loudly and the parts he was holding broke off. He let out a yelp of surprise and rage as he watched millions of yen in money, jewelry, expensive electronics, and, of course, the car crash to the ground. Just about everything was destroyed by the impact.

_"Who did that?_" the Parasite bellowed furiously, clenching his fists so tightly that his knuckles popped.

"I did," a soft voice answered him.

Parasite's head snapped up, and his eyes widened as he saw Wonder Girl hovering above him. The Amazon's exhaustion was plain to see—even in this tense standoff, her eyelids drooped half-closed—yet she remained the very picture of quiet defiance.

"How did you get out?" he growled.

The corners of Wonder Girl's lips quirked upwards, and she placed her fists on her hips. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

It was far from the most scathingly delivered taunt he'd ever heard, but he was a new Ryo Joshuyo now, a Ryo Joshuyo who didn't take disrespect from anybody.

_Especially_ not one his little batteries.

With a roar of pure rage he shot upwards into the air at her, very nearly crashing into her with all the speed he could muster. Given how completely drained she was, the blow would've certainly killed her, but Parasite was too furious to care.

However, Wonder Girl managed to get out of his path at the last moment, and he missed her entirely. It took the Parasite only a second to realize this, but by the time that second had passed, he was on the verge of leaving the Earth's atmosphere. When he stopped, he found himself not in the blue sky, but in the star studded blackness of outer space.

Releasing a wordless growl of anger, he quickly turned around, using his stolen telescopic vision to spot Wonder Girl. The Amazon was flying southwest, apparently trying to get away after having realized just how stupid she'd been.

_Nice try, bitch,_ Parasite thought, a moment before he went rocketing back to the Earth, flames wreathing his form as he plunged back into the atmosphere, determined to show her _exactly_ what happened to anyone who crossed him.

Unfortunately, his aim remained just _slightly _off, and he missed Wonder Girl by little more than a hair's breadth. Instead of tackling her painfully to the ground, Parasite went crashing into the pavement all by himself, face first.

It _really_ would've hurt if he wasn't in possession of both Supergirl's and Wonder Girl's powers. As it was, he was just lucky that he hadn't been going _straight_ down; Parasite might've reached the Earth's molten mantle before he managed to stop himself. Instead, he plowed through the street, sending great chunks of asphalt and concrete spraying everywhere.

Finally, he came to a stop, having left a nearly half-mile long scar along one of the major streets of Tokyo-3. "Damn it, why am I so clumsy all of all of a sudden?" Parasite wondered aloud as he got up. "And where the hell is Wonder Girl?"

A chunk of broken concrete crashed into the back of his head, moving at over 90 miles per hour. Though the improvised missile caused him no pain, he whirled about, enraged that anyone would dare to attack him.

"Hey, there, Joshuyo!" Supergirl greeted him cheerfully, just before throwing another piece of concrete at him. This one struck his face with pinpoint accuracy, moving just as quickly as the first one had.

He didn't even blink. "Supergirl? You got out, too?"  
She actually had the gall to roll her eyes at him. "What are you, stupid?" she demanded. "You don't think that if one of us managed to get free, she wouldn't help the other escape?"

Parasite's hands balled into fists. "I'm warning you," he growled. "I only need one of you alive. Be a good girl and give up, and it'll be you."

She actually laughed at him, tossing her hair back with a disdainful flick of her head. "Please, you have Wonder Girl's powers _and_ mine, and you can't catch either one of us! You're pathetic!"

Something inside Parasite just snapped, and he charged directly at her, intent on ripping the Girl of Steel limb from limb. However, she must've known that last comment would push him over the edge, because she'd actually started moving just before she finished delivering it. It was the only reason why she managed to jump out of his way in time.

Rather than hitting her, Parasite crashed through the side of an abandoned building, wall after wall coming down painlessly before him until he burst out the other side. He had completely lost track of Supergirl, and he began to scan the city with his X-ray vision in search of her.

However, he had barely started before he heard a familiar voice.

"Ryo Joshuyo."

He turned to see Wonder Girl hovering in the air behind him. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and a perfectly condescending expression adorned her face.

"Ryo Joshuyo," she said quietly, "you are a worthless loser, and your theft of someone else's power didn't do anything to change that. A worthless loser is all you'll ever be."

Under other circumstances, even Joshuyo would've realized by this point that there was something seriously wrong with his powers. He also probably would've figured out that he needed to try a different tact if he wanted to capture his prey. He even might've noticed that his two foes had been leading him through the city in a fairly consistent direction, and he thus would've truly seen where they'd taken him.

However, the constant stream of insults and defiance from the two girls he'd already begun to think of as his slaves had kept him too angry to put the pieces together. This final, well aimed slight obliterated any trace of conscious thought Joshuyo had left, and he hurled himself directly at Wonder Girl, going from zero to his top speed in the blink of an eye.

It was a miracle that she managed to avoid him, but avoid him she did. Instead of hitting her, the Parasite crashed directly into the golden lasso that Wonder Girl had strung out between two power towers. Unstoppable villain met indestructible rope, and the result was predictable; the only things that _could_ give, did.

The power towers gave out, falling with a loud groan of protesting metal, and falling to the loud groan with a thunderous crash.

Parasite, caught completely by surprise, found his flight path badly skewed. Too confused and disoriented to compensate properly, he abruptly found himself going downwards.

Straight toward the enormous power transformer in the middle of the electrical substation that the two superwoman had led him to.

_"No!"_ he cried, a moment before he hit.

Then he crashed into the transformer, and his world became a blindingly bright light show, composed entirely of yellow sparks and crackling tongues of white energy.

He was absorbing the electrical energy, he realized. The only problem was that it wasn't bringing him the rush of euphoria that he'd come to associate with stealing energy.

No, this _hurt_.

"Too much!" Parasite yelled, as he tried desperately to escape from the twisted remains of substation. However, he was so badly disoriented that he didn't even know which way was up, and his pain and fear weren't exactly helping him get his bearings. "Too much! _Nooooo!"_

* * *

Just outside the carnage of the now thoroughly ruined substation stood Supergirl and Wonder Girl. The two superwomen stared at the great hunk of twisted metal, which was still throwing sparks. They waited until the Parasite's final scream ceased echoing throughout Tokyo-3 before either of them spoke.

"Is it over?" the Amazon asked softly. "Did we defeat him?"

Supergirl smirked. "Well, I would hope so!" she said. "After all, I'd hate to think we just caused a huge blackout for nothing."

The Amazon's shoulders slumped in relief. "Praise Hera," she breathed.

The Girl of Steel quirked an eyebrow at this, somewhat surprised to discover that her fellow superwoman apparently worshipped the ancient Greek pantheon. Then she decided to shrug it off.

_Magic boots, Greek gods. Why not?_ She thought, feeling almost giddy now that she no longer had to fear becoming the Parasite's prisoner again.

"You did good, by the way," she said, deciding (somewhat reluctantly) that it was only right to give credit where credit was due. "I wasn't sure that you'd be up for this, with your invincibility and super strength completely gone. I was impressed when you decided to fight him with me."

A small smile appeared on Wonder Girl's face. "How did you know what taunts would set him off?" she asked.

Supergirl laughed. "Don't you ever read the _Tattler_, Wonder Girl?" she asked. "Parasite never kept his real name a secret, so they researched him and—"

_**"Rauugh!"**_

Supergirl stopped speaking as the loud, practically feral growl erupted forth from the newly made pile of junk before them. Both superwomen turned, feeling identical sinking sensations.

Then the Parasite burst forth from the wreckage of the electrical substation with a loud roar, a look of wild fury blazing in his eyes. The huge influx of energy he'd endured had left him far more massive than he'd been minutes ago. The purple-skinned man was now easily over ten feet tall in height, his massive frame wrapped in a thick layer of steel hard muscle. Supergirl noticed that his arms were thicker around than the average telephone pole, and she guessed that he had to weigh at _least_ 800 pounds.

"Oh, shi—"

With another mindless growl, he lurched forward, a lumbering behemoth headed straight toward them. Supergirl and Wonder Girl both moved to get out of his way, each taking only a moment to overcome their surprise and terror at his reappearance.

Unfortunately, the Amazon had underestimated just how great his reach was now. Parasite grabbed her booted foot and didn't let go. The Amazon immediately attempted to pull her foot out of her scarlet boot, but his grip was just too tight for her to wriggle free.

"Kiiiillll," he growled from someplace low in his throat, his voice sounding far more gravelly than it had before.

He began to slowly tighten his grip on the Amazon, clearly wishing to inflict as much pain as possible before he ended her. She cried out in agony as he applied more and more pressure to her foot, threatening to crush it. Yet she never ceased in her efforts to escape from him. An Amazon never surrendered.

Meanwhile, Supergirl stood a short distance away, her eyes wide with horror as she took in the terrible scene before her. Wonder Girl would be in serious trouble if she didn't do something, and quick.

Unfortunately, there was only one thing she could do that had any chance of saving the other superwoman.

_Being a hero really sucks sometimes,_ she decided before she sprang into action.

She leaped into the air, using every ounce of her remaining super strength and flying ability to propel herself upwards. Even so, she still barely managed to get as high up as she needed to.

Supergirl came to a landing on Parasite's obscenely wide back, throwing her arms around his bull neck, getting a tight grip.

The now familiar white tongues of energy burst into being as Parasite's body began to absorb the last ergs of her super powers. The Girl of Steel grimaced, crying out in pain. This time, though, Parasite was screaming even more loudly than she was. His muscles began to ripple and bulge unnaturally beneath his skin, and the beast that had once been Ryo Joshuyo started to grow to an even greater size.

"I told you your little scheme would never work, didn't I?" Supergirl hissed through clenched teeth. "That it would fall apart eventually?"

Parasite responded by trying to grab her so he could pull her off. However, he was so badly muscle-bound that he couldn't even come close to reaching her.

"But you thought you could use my powers to do whatever you wanted forever!" Supergirl yelled. "Well if you want my powers so much, then take them! Take all of them! _**Choke on them!"**_

Parasite abruptly threw his head back, almost bucking Supergirl off of him, and screamed. The sound could be heard everywhere within the city.

Then his whole body abruptly bulged outwards, yet not like before. Instead of muscle, layer after layer of amorphous bulk was added to his frame. He opened his hand, releasing Wonder Girl, as his fingers grew too fat for him to keep them closed. In seconds, he had become almost completely round. The only distinguishable feature remaining on him was a great, gaping mouth.

Finally falling silent, the Parasite fell forward, collapsing onto the ground with a deep, meaty thud. He lay there, motionless, looking like the world's largest, most disgusting piece of overripe fruit.

Supergirl rolled off of him and onto the ground, gasping for breath. She felt even more drained than she had after her first encounter with him.

Wonder Girl was immediately at her side. "Are you all right?" she asked.

"I feel about as weak as a kitten," she groaned, accepting the Amazon's help in getting up. "But I'll live."

"Good," Wonder Girl said. "You saved my life. Thank you." She bowed her head.

"You're welcome," Supergirl replied. "Now let's get the hell out of here. I don't need my super senses to hear those police sirens, and I'd rather not be here when they show up. They can cart off Joshuyo here without us."

"Right," Wonder Girl agreed.

The Amazon allowed Supergirl to climb onto her back again and took off into the air. The Girl of Steel directed her to the place where she had hidden the bag containing her civilian clothing.

"I could take you to your home, if you like," Wonder Girl offered.

"Thanks, but I'm not ready to let you know who's under this mask," Supergirl replied as she picked up her bag. "No offense."

"None taken," Wonder Girl replied quietly, wondering what Supergirl would think she knew the Amazon already had a very strong suspicion about who she was in her civilian life.

The enchanted tiara she wore prevented anyone from making the connection between Wonder Girl and her alter ego, even though her face was fully visible. Supergirl, on the other hand, had no supernatural forces safeguarding her identity.

_It would certainly explain Parasite's amusement earlier,_ she thought.

"I should go," she said.

"Right," Supergirl replied, "I should head back, too."

Without another word, the Amazon took off into the sky, heading for home.

Supergirl watched the blue-haired girl fly off for a second. She hadn't always had the most positive view of Wonder Girl, to put it mildly. After all, it _had_ been her jealousy of the attention the Amazon was getting that had motivated her to first put on the Power Girl costume. Now, however, she found herself respecting her fellow superwoman. Wonder Girl had been strangely wishy-washy for someone with as much power as she usually wielded, but she had willingly risked a great deal to help stop the Parasite.

Then the Girl of Steel went off to change. It was time to be Asuka Langley Soryu again.

* * *

"'Authorities picked up a giant mass of purple flesh that was found in the ruins of Electrical Substation Number Two approximately one hour after the Parasite departed from AlphaTech,'" Asuka read from the latest edition of the _Tokyo Tattler_ three days later. "'DNA tests have confirmed that it was indeed the creature that had once been Ryo Joshuyo, and he is currently in police custody at a maximum security facility.'"

"Hmph, couldn't have happened to a nicer guy," Misato grumbled, before sniffling and wiping at her nose with a tissue.

Asuka threw a scowl at her guardian. "Do you want me to read this whole thing, or—ahh…ahh-_choo!_" Her attempt at a rebuke dissolved into a sneeze. "Damn it."

Both the Second Child and the Operations Director were sprawled out on the couch at the Katsuragi apartment, dressed in their pajamas and covered by blankets. They had both started to exhibit bad flu-like symptoms the day after the Parasite had struck, and they were thus staying home from work and school.

Misato smirked, amusement twinkling in her brown eyes, despite how weary and ill she looked. "Do I want you to read the whole thing or ah-choo?" she asked.

"Can it," Asuka grumbled, before blowing her nose. "Gott, being sick sucks. This is all your fault, you know."

"My fault?" Misato asked incredulously. "You were the one who got sick before and brought all your damn germs into the apartment."

Asuka just grumbled something intelligible beneath her breath, wishing that she could explain the entire situation to her stubborn guardian.

She didn't notice the purple-haired woman giving her a speculative look while she did.

"Whatever, keep reading," Misato commanded eventually.

The redhead rolled her eyes. "Well, since you asked so nicely…" she raised the tabloid to her eyes. "'Sources trusted by the _Tattler_ have stated that doctors have been unable to get the Parasite to respond to stimuli. While it remains far too early for any firm prognosis, it is believed that Joshuyo has gone into a catatonic state as a result of what happened.

"'As of this writing, Supergirl and Wonder Girl have not been spotted since their battle with Parasite. However, no bodies were found in the wreckage of the substation, so it is likely that both superwomen survived the encounter. Though the specifics of what exactly they did to Joshuyo remain unclear, we at the _Tokyo Tattler_ will be pleased when we see them in the sky above us once more.'"

"There's been so much freaky stuff happening in Tokyo-3 lately, even if you don't count the Angels," Misato groaned. "I wish it would stop. We already have enough insanity to deal with in this city."

Asuka opened her mouth to reply, but she was interrupted as the door to the apartment opened.

"I'm home," Shinji announced his return from school. He appeared in the living room a moment later. "How are you two doing?" he asked.

"About the same as this morning," Asuka grumbled.

"Sorry to hear that," he said sympathetically. "Can I do anything for either one of you?"

"Can you fluff my pillows for me, Shinji-kun?" Misato asked with a small pout.

Asuka wondered how the other woman was able to look both adorable and sultry at the same time. One thing was sure, no male who'd reached puberty would be able to deny her.

"Of course, Misato," the Third Child agreed, moving to the task.

_Not that he minds,_ Asuka thought dourly. Honestly, the boy took to the task of playing nursemaid with far more gusto than she felt a man should. It was almost sickening how Misato was taking advantage of Shinji's caring nature while she was ill. Asuka wasn't the least bit jealous of attention he had been lavishing on Misato.

Really.

"Would you like me to fluff your pillows, too, Asuka?" Shinji asked.

"Well," she said, "since you asked…"

* * *

**Author's Notes:** And thus ends the Parasite's criminal career, with a special guest appearance from Wonder Girl. Now that yet another Superman villain has had his time in the sun, we might actually get back to the Angels. I almost don't remember which one ours heroes faced last. Almost.

Anyway, thanks as always to my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta reader as well.


	12. Chapter 11

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC comics or anything associated with it, and am making no profit off this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Eleven:** Date Night

Asuka really hated it when she got stuck with cleaning duty at school.

So far as she could tell, the purpose of it was supposed to be for the students to learn respect for the place, or at the very least to discourage them from vandalizing it. So far as she was concerned, this failed on both counts. Students still vandalized the school. They just made certain to time it so someone else would have to clean it up, or they did it in places they weren't responsible for. As for respect, well, it certainly didn't make _her_ respect the place.

_Honestly, it's all probably because some bureaucrat figured the government could save money this way,_ she thought with a scowl as she swept the floor. _I could be out saving people, but instead I'm stuck here._

Well, there was at least one thing she could still do while cleaning up. Looking around to make sure that Hikari wasn't in the immediate area, she reached into her pocket and withdrew her cell phone, hitting the button to speed dial Kaji.

A few moments later, she found her call being transferred to his voicemail, _again._

_Damn, this calls for desperate measures,_ she decided as she waited for the beep.

"Kaji, help me! There's this pervert and—oh, Gott, get off of me!" she yelled into the phone, then immediately ended the call.

_There, if __**that**__ doesn't get a call back, __**nothing**__ will,_ she thought.

Unfortunately for her, all her shouting had drawn the attention of the class rep, who emerged from a nearby classroom. "Is everything all right out here? I heard yelling," Hikari said.

"Everything's just fine," the redhead replied, acting as though she didn't know _what_ the pig-tailed girl was talking about.

"Oh, all right then," Hikari agreed a little too easily. "Hey, Asuka, I was wondering if you could do a favor for me?"

The redhead frowned slightly. "Like what?" she asked.

"Well, my older sister Kodama sort of told one of her college friends that she could get him a date with you," Hikari admittedly sheepishly.

"What? How did _that_ happen?" Asuka asked.

Hikari shrugged. "I don't know. I can't seem to pry the whole story out of my sister, no matter how hard I try, but I do know that she'll be really embarrassed if you don't do it," she confessed. "Please, Asuka? Kodama tells me he's really nice."

"I don't know…" the redhead said slowly, finding the whole situation more than a little weird.

"Why not?" Hikari pressed. "Is it because you're getting involved with someone else? Ikari, maybe?"

"I am not getting involved with Shinji!" Asuka snapped immediately, turning a bright shade of crimson.

"Okay, good, so you can go!" Hikari said, sounding relieved. "Your date's all set up for this Saturday afternoon. He'll pick you up at three."

With that, the class rep disappeared back into one of the classrooms, leaving a somewhat dazed redhead in her wake.

"What just happened?" she wondered aloud.

Eventually, she shrugged and returned to the task of sweeping the floor. Going out on a blind date wouldn't be so bad; she always had liked older men, and if the guy tried anything untoward with her, well, he'd get _much_ more than he'd bargained for.

_Heh, maybe it'll even make Shinji jealous,_ she thought.

Yeah, going out on a date might be just what the doctor ordered to remind him that she had plenty of other men looking for her attention, as though that wasn't obvious enough already, and…

…wait a minute.

"I meant Kaji!" she exclaimed. "Not Shinji! Kaji!"

Her shout caused Hikari to poke her head out of the classroom again. "Everything all right out here?" she asked.

"Just fine!" Asuka snapped.

The class rep's expression made it clear that she was rather dubious about that, but she apparently didn't want to give the redhead a chance to rescind her "agreement" to go on the blind date. Hikari wordlessly disappeared back into the room.

"Okay, time to forget _that_ ever happened," she muttered to herself.

Honestly, it had been no big deal. Just a little slip of the…brain. It had meant absolutely nothing whatsoever.

Really.

* * *

Misato was standing in front of the door to Asuka's bedroom.

Misato had been standing in front of the door to Asuka's bedroom for the last ten minutes.

She had recently gotten over her cold, returning to good health with unusual abruptness, even for her. She'd always been pretty hearty (if not as impervious to illness as Asuka usually was), but still, she'd never completely recovered from a cold overnight like that before.

Interestingly, Asuka had also bounced back at almost exactly the same time that _she_ had.

Misato wasn't an idiot. The Parasite had shown up at her door, asking for Asuka. Then, upon discovering that she wasn't home, he had proceeded to take her hostage and hole up inside a lab, then demand to speak to _Supergirl._ Asuka had been going out a lot lately, offering only vague explanations of where she'd been when Misato asked.

The logical conclusion was obvious, but still…

_Could Asuka __**really**__ be Supergirl?_ She thought.

On its face, the idea that the redhead, who tended to be bristly at best and an outright arrogant brat at worst could be the Girl of Steel, the great heroine of Tokyo-3, seemed preposterous.

Really, would the Asuka she knew use such incredible powers for so many acts of benevolence and seemingly nothing else? Wouldn't Asuka, upon discovering that she really _was_ superior to everyone around her, want to shout the news of her greatness to the heavens? And anyone who would listen?

"But that's not really giving her enough credit, is it?" Misato commented to Pen-Pen, who had waddled over to his owner, apparently curious as to why she was just standing around.

Pen-Pen tilted his head, giving her an inquisitive look.

No, Misato decided, it wasn't.

Asuka wasn't stupid. Her immature behavior (often done, ironically, in the name of appearing to be an adult) made it easy to forget, but the redhead was incredibly smart.

_Smart enough to know that NERV might want to use her outside of EVA if they knew she had super powers,_ the Ops Director thought. _And Asuka would never want to lose Unit Two, that's for damn sure._

It also didn't hurt that Supergirl was always conspicuously absent when an Angel attacked, though, then again, so was Wonder Girl.

As for the various acts of heroism, well, Misato had always known that Asuka was far more than just a brat. She wouldn't have taken the girl in if she'd thought that was the case. Anyway, there was no doubt that the redhead would absolutely love to receive the amount of attention and praise Supergirl continually got.

"Either way, the answer to my question is almost certainly inside this room," Misato muttered. "What do you think, Pen-Pen, should I?"

"Wark!"

Misato sighed softly. "Yeah, that's about what I thought you'd say."

She really _should_ find out if she had Supergirl living in her apartment. If there was a chance that NERV could field the Girl of Steel against the Angels, she felt obligated to take it.

Yet she still couldn't make herself open Asuka's door and go looking for the famous Supergirl costume. Instead, she continued to hesitate, recalling an exchange she'd had with her best friend some time back.

* * *

_"So you have no idea at all?" Ritsuko asked._

_"No, and before you ask, I don't intend to go snooping until I find out," Misato said._

_"Why not?" Ritsuko asked._

_Misato paused for a moment before answering. "I know that Asuka feels like we place adult responsibilities on her shoulders, while denying her adult freedoms and privileges, and to an extent she's right," she said. "We don't let the Children drive cars, we don't let them drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes, we wouldn't let them just sleep around if they were so inclined, I didn't let Shinji or Asuka live alone, and Asuka sure as hell won't be allowed to date the older men she seems so drawn to. Of course, we really can't let the Children do these things, but that doesn't make it fair to them."_

_"Yes, so?"_

_"So maybe I want to allow Asuka some adult privacy, so long as I don't have reason to believe that whatever she's up to is bad or harmful," Misato said._

_"That's rather…sentimental," Ritsuko said. "Arguably rather foolish, too."_

_"Look, the minute I think there might be something rotten going on, I'll do something," Misato said. "We treat these kids like they're components too damn much as it is. I just want to do right by them whenever I can."_

* * *

Misato sighed softly and turned away from the door, heading to the kitchen to get herself a beer.

_I can't do it,_ she thought.

Much as she wanted to gain another weapon for use against the Angels, this was even bigger than that. It was about doing right by her charges and not treating them like they were nothing more than cogs in the war machine. It was about not losing their humanity while they defended humanity.

_God, I'm getting overly dramatic here,_ Misato thought, cracking open a can of Yebisu. _Clearly, __**this**__ is long overdue. _She took a long pull from her can.

"The way I see it, Pen-Pen," she said, "I told Rits I'd start investigating once I thought something rotten was going on. Well, I don't see Asuka potentially being Supergirl as something rotten. Simple as that."

"Wark!"

Misato smiled. It was always good to know that her faithful penguin agreed with her.

* * *

"What do you think?" Gendo Ikari asked Captain Chiron.

Both men stood in the Commander's cavernous office, staring at the monitor embedded in the far wall, which was usually hidden by a sliding panel. A live feed from a camera in Emil Hamilton's cell was currently on display.

To say that the man had seen better days would've been an understatement. Currently sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, Hamilton looked like the most wretched person in the world. Not having been allowed to wash or offered a change of clothes since his arrival, he was utterly filthy. His hair and beard had both grown long and untamed, and it was obvious that there was much more gray in both than there had been before his internment inside NERV.

"I don't think he's going to crack any time soon," Chiron confessed.

Gendo's eyebrows rose a fraction of a centimeter. It was an unusually expressive gesture for him. "You're serious?" he asked, trying not to sound as incredulous as he felt.

"Much as I hate to admit it, he's been one tough nut to crack," Chiron said with a shrug. "Supergirl might as well be his own daughter, for how resistant he is to betraying her identity. What makes it worse is that he keeps feeding me random names to get me to go away for a little while. It's been a real pain in the ass having to track down all these girls, only to find out that there's nothing super about them."

Had he been prone to talking with his hands, the Commander would've responded to this with a dismissive wave. He frankly didn't care about what troubles the Chief of Section Two had had to go through lately. How exactly the man had gone about determining that the girls Hamilton had named were indeed not Supergirl—and, knowing Captain Chiron, he'd probably achieved this by sending an agent to injure them, to see if it was possible—concerned him even less.

"What would you advise?" Gendo asked instead.

"I think that putting Hamilton under more duress right now would just cause the guy to crack, and then he'd never be useful to us," Chiron said.

"Right now?" Gendo asked, easily spotting the key words in that sentence.

"Yeah. If we let him rest and recuperate for a while, I can start again," Chiron answered. "Sometimes when you leave a guy alone long enough, he gets comfortable. Assumes that it's over. Then when you come back to begin the whole thing all over again, he just can't stand the thought of it and spills his guts immediately."

"Give the good doctor all the time you feel is appropriate," Gendo said, shutting off the monitor and sliding the panel back into place. "But remember how important it is that NERV gets this information as soon as possible."

"Yes, sir."

Gendo nodded and began to head for the door.

"Ah, sir, if you have a moment, I'd like to discuss—" Chiron began.

"Fuyutski can deal with it," Gendo said brusquely. "I have an appointment to keep."

* * *

Shinji absolutely hated the graveyard.

Of course, he knew that graveyards, pretty much by definition, were not happy places, nor were they supposed to be. However, he'd seen other graveyards before, and they had been far nicer places of rest, with green grass, various ornate headstones, and flowers planted by the loved ones of the dead.

Not this place. In the graveyard where Yui Ikari supposedly lay, the ground had always been a dry, brown dust, as though someone had salted the earth many years ago. The headstones were all exactly the same, save for the engravings upon them, like they had been churned out on an assembly line.

It was not, Shinji mused, the sort of place where _he_ would want to spend eternity, and it all seemed so unlike what Yui Ikari meant to him. Nothing about the place invoked any of his blurry and nearly forgotten memories of having a family that was whole and happy.

Still, he could've tolerated the almost alien atmosphere of the place easily enough; that wasn't the thing that most bothered him.

All his memories of the graveyard unpleasant ones. When he came here with his father, things were awkward at best, and disastrous at worst. He still remembered running away from this place the last time he'd come here, three years ago.

This time, he'd hoped, would be different, but so far, it appeared to be playing out much the same as many of his previous visits. The awkward ones, anyway.

"It just hasn't sunk in that mother is resting here," he commented to his father as he placed a small bouquet of white flowers in front of the headstone. Part of him irrationally expected them to shrivel and die the instant they made contact with the acrid ground. "I don't even remember her face." He added in a guilty little whisper.

"Man survives by forgetting his memories," Gendo remarked, "but there are some things a man should never forget. Yui taught me about these things. I come here to reaffirm that."

This type of philosophizing was not at all what Shinji wanted out of his father at a time like this. Indeed, he suddenly felt like he would've done _anything_ for one little anecdote about the all too brief period of time that they'd been together. One tiny story to help him _remember_.

Yet he knew from experience that asking his father for one would yield nothing.

"You don't have any pictures of her?" he asked instead.

"None. This grave as well is just a decoration," Gendo answered. "There is no body."

That surprised Shinji a little bit; he'd never known that the grave was empty before. He was somewhat glad to discover that his mother wasn't in this miserable place.

"So my old guardian was right. You threw them all away," he said, annoyed enough at the lack of pictures to take a tiny jab at his father.

"I keep everything in my heart. That is enough for now," Gendo said, with just a trace of sharpness in his voice. Apparently, he'd seen the barb for what it was.

Either that, or Shinji was just imagining it.

Before the Third Child could even think about venturing another remark, a VTOL abruptly descended from the sky, its powerful engines kicking up great clouds of dust as it landed on the nearest available patch of empty ground.

"It's time. I'm leaving now," Gendo announced.

Shinji hesitated only for a moment before calling out to his father. "Um, I'm glad that I got to talk to you today."

Gendo paused for a moment, turning back just long enough to say, "I see."

Then he climbed into the plane. A moment later, it took off with another great burst of noise and wind. Rapidly ascending, it soon disappeared into the clear blue sky.

Now alone, Shinji allowed a heavy sigh to release him, his shoulders slumping. As he'd expected, there had been no moment of bonding with his father, just a reminder that his mother was dead and his family broken. The most that could be said for the whole event was that it could've gone worse.

He loitered around for a few seconds longer, then shrugged and walked off.

_I hope that Asuka and Misato are enjoying today more than I am,_ he thought as he made it to the sidewalk and began to head home.

* * *

Asuka was having a _miserable_ day.

For one thing, her blind date had taken her to an _amusement park_, of all places. Asuka couldn't think of any venue that said "I think you're still a kid!" louder than an _amusement park_.

So the thrill of dating an older man had worn off the moment they'd arrived, but Asuka could have lived with that, even if it had ensured right from the start that there was no chance of a second date.

Unfortunately, there were other things about her date, a college student named Miyuki, that were grating on her.

"So what was your favorite Wonder Girl moment, Asuka-chan?" he asked her as he handed her a cotton candy. "Personally, I've always been partial to the time she stopped that bank robbery."

Asuka crushed the paper cone that her cotton candy was on as she reminded herself, over and over, that it wouldn't be very heroic to give this guy an up close and personal demonstration of her heat vision.

To postpone having to give Miyuki an answer, the redhead took a bit of her candy, then made a face. The pink gossamer was far, far too sweet for her tastes.

"I don't know," she finally told the guy. "It's hard to pick. There are just so _many_ great moments to choose from."

Her tone made it obvious that she was both being sarcastic and on the verge of exploding. The vast majority of people would've realized that and backed away from the topic, even if they didn't understand why it was irritating her so much.

Miyuki, however, was sadly oblivious. "Yeah, good point."

"Why don't we talk about something else?" Asuka suggested. "What do you think about Power Girl and Supergirl?"

"Meh," was his eloquent reply. "Hey, want me to win you a stuffed animal?" he asked, pointing to a series of booths with carnival games.

"_No._" Asuka said, her tone frosty.

"…oh, all right," Miyuki said, finally seeming to realize that this date wasn't going swimmingly after all. "Um, how about a ride on the Ferris wheel?"

"Sure, fine," Asuka said. "I have to use the ladies' room, though."

"All right," Miyuki said. "You go ahead, and I'll go and get us tickets."

Asuka nodded and wordlessly headed off to one of the little buildings that contained a restroom, throwing away the cotton candy in a waste bin as she went. She didn't actually go into the ladies' room once she reached her destination, though; she didn't really have to go. She'd just wanted to get away from her date for a few minutes.

_I should just ditch this guy now while I have the chance,_ she thought grumpily, crossing her arms and leaning against the side of the little building.

Severely tempted though she was, part of her was reluctant to just bolt. She had, after all, agreed to go on this date. Sort of.

She hesitated for long moment, perfectly caught between her sense of obligation and her desire to escape the miserable parody of a date she'd found herself in.

Finally, Asuka sighed, preparing to head back and meet Miyuki by the Ferris Wheel.

Before she had taken a single step in that direction, however, her superhumanly keen ears picked up the ominous sound of metal groaning. She immediately began to scan the area with her X-ray vision, quickly discovering the source of the sound.

The Ferris Wheel was starting to tilt to one side. In seconds, it would fall over, crushing dozens upon dozens of people beneath it. Several people on the ground and others on the ride were already starting to realize something was wrong; Asuka could clearly hear their cries and shouts of panic.

_Thank you,_ she thought to whatever deity might've caused this, then quickly ducked behind the little building, unbuttoning her green dress and revealing the blue and red costume she had on underneath.

Seconds later, Supergirl was soaring through the air toward the Ferris Wheel, which was now tilting dangerously. With one last, loud groan of bending metal, the amusement park ride began to fall in earnest, threatening to crush dozens upon dozens of people, as well as kill everyone already inside the thing.

The Girl of Steel put on a burst of speed, grabbing the side of the Ferris Wheel and stopping its fall mere seconds before it hit the ground. Easily supporting the huge ride's weight, she looked around, making sure that no one had been hurt.

And almost laughed out loud when she saw her blind date. Miyuki was cowering almost directly below her; he was crouching on the ground with his arms over his head, as though that would've helped. Out of everyone in the area, he appeared to be the only person who hadn't yet realized that Supergirl had arrived to save the day.

"Are you all right, sir?" she couldn't resist asking him, carefully pitching her voice a little lower than usual to decrease the odds of him recognizing her.

Miyuki slowly uncurled himself, looking up at Supergirl with wide, surprised eyes. He smiled.

_Guess that showed him that I deserve more than a "meh"!_ She thought.

"Wow, Supergirl," he said. "Do you know Wonder Girl?"

Or not.

"Haven't seen her since that mess with the Parasite," Supergirl said curtly, deciding that her date was most _definitely_ over.

Then, without giving Miyuki a chance to reply, she slowly began to push the Ferris Wheel upwards again, until it was back in its proper position. After welding the base of the ride to the ground with a little heat vision, the Girl of Steel took off, heading for home and away from this sorry excuse for a date.

* * *

The sound of music from the cello filled the apartment.

Part of Shinji had thought that dragging the instrument out and starting to play had been a very bad idea. The cello had once belonged to his mother and was, in fact, his only real keepsake of her. The Third Child could, if he allowed himself to, work himself into quite the state of sadness and melancholy simply by looking at it on a _normal_ day.

Shinji had a bad tendency to indulge in self-pity, but there was a point when even he tired of such emotions. Nevertheless, he'd taken the instrument out of its case and, seeing as how he had the apartment to himself, sat on a chair in the living room and began to play.

Fortunately, while he had mixed emotions about the cello itself, music had always had a calming effect on him. He could feel himself relaxing as he played, the tension he'd built up in anticipation of visiting the grave with his father gradually leaving him.

He was feeling almost like his normal self again when he heard someone clapping. Surprised, Shinji immediately stopped playing and looked up to see Asuka standing nearby. He'd been so focused on his music that he hadn't realized she'd come back.

"That was very nice, Shinji," the redhead said.

The Third Child blushed, embarrassed. "Aw, it wasn't anything," he said. "I was just messing around, really."

She placed her hands on her hips. "You know, when someone pays you a compliment, you should just say 'thank you', not do your best to explain why you don't deserve it," she said, but her tone was unusually gentle.

"Um…thank you," he said.

She nodded approvingly. "Better. Anyway, I play the violin myself, so you can't fool me. I know you weren't just 'messing around'."

"I didn't know that you played violin," Shinji said.

"Well, I haven't had much time for it since I came here, but I'm very good at it," Asuka said immodestly. "Maybe we can play together sometime."

"Maybe," Shinji replied noncommittally. While he enjoyed playing the cello, he'd always been uncomfortable doing it in front of others. "So how did your date go? I didn't expect you to be back so early." He added, hoping to change the subject.

Asuka made a face. "My blind date was about the most annoying guy I ever met," she grumbled.

"Oh, sorry to hear that," Shinji lied. He actually found himself feeling very relieved at this news, but he told himself he didn't understand why that was.

"Also, the damn Ferris Wheel nearly fell over," the redhead added in an almost offhand manner.

"…_what?_"

"Relax, nobody was hurt or anything," Asuka said. "Supergirl showed up and put the thing back in place. I decided to give my sorry excuse for a date the slip in all the chaos."

"I see."

Her eyes narrowed. "You have a problem with what I did?" she demanded.

"No, not at all!" Shinji put his hands up in a placating gesture.

"Hmph," Asuka grumped. "I'm going to my room to change. Don't you dare to try to peek."

She disappeared into her room, and Shinji took the opportunity to put away his cello, lest the redhead request a performance or even decide she wanted to do a duet right then. A few minutes later, she returned to the living room, snatched up the remote control, and started to watch TV. Shinji picked up a magazine from the coffee table and tried to read, but he found himself repeatedly losing his concentration. Without his music, he found himself thinking about the disaster that had befallen his family so many years ago.

Hours passed, and night fell. Still, Misato didn't return home.

"This is stupid!" Asuka abruptly declared, startling Shinji.

"What?" he asked.

"This whole situation!" she answered, turning off the television and carelessly tossing the remote to an empty spot on the couch. "I'm bored, you're gloomy, and Gott only knows when Misato the wonder-guardian will be back."

"Why do you think I'm gloomy?" he asked.

Asuka rolled her eyes. "You've been reading the same magazine for the past three hours or so," she said flatly. "And you haven't turned the page once."

"Oh," he said sheepishly.

"We should get out of this place. Go outside and do something," she proclaimed, getting up from the couch.

"Like what?" Shinji asked.

"We'll figure it out on the way," the redhead replied with a dismissive little wave.

"I don't know…" the Third Child hesitated, suddenly becoming very interested with a particular spot on the floor.

At least until he felt Asuka's fingers under his chin, gently lifting up his head so he had to look at her.

"Tell me, baka," she began in an usually soft voice, "do you think your mother would feel betrayed, knowing you didn't spend the entire anniversary of her death feeling miserable?"

"I…I don't know," he admitted.

"Well, would _you_ feel betrayed, if you died, and the people you left behind didn't make a point of being depressed on the anniversary of your death?" she pressed. "Would you want them to be miserable?"

"Of course not," he frowned.

"Well, there you go then," Asuka said with a smug smile on her face.

Shinji paused for a moment, then finally relented. "All right, let's go."

The two departed from the apartment, soon hopping onto a bus that took them downtown. After getting there, however, it became clear that Asuka had no real plan in mind for them. They stopped at a noodle cart long enough to get something to eat, but after that, they seemed to be wandering aimlessly around the city.

Shinji didn't mind; he liked spending time with Asuka.

He smirked. _Not too long ago, I would've laughed at anybody who told me I'd be spending time with Asuka by choice._

"What's so funny?" she asked with a frown, noticing his amusement.

"Nothing," he shook his head. "I was just thinking about how different things are from when I first came here." Which, he supposed, was technically the truth.

She gave him a look that said she didn't quite believe him but let it go. "Well, now we just have to find something to do," Asuka declared. "I swear, if we were back in Germany, we wouldn't know what to pick, we'd have so much to choose from. This place is so boring."

Shinji looked around, starting as he finally realized why this area looked so familiar to him. He had wandered into this section of the city when he had run away, after the Fourth Angel.

"What?" Asuka asked, noticing his sudden look of surprise.

"Nothing," he said. "Um, there's a movie theater around here somewhere." Shinji added, hoping to keep Asuka from pressing the issue further.

"Where? Oh, wait, I see it," Asuka said, noticing the sign outside the theater. "Oh, Gott! That's too perfect!" she laughed.

"What is?" he asked, squinting. He could see the billboard outside the theater well enough to observe that there was apparently only one movie playing that day, but he couldn't quite read the title. It seemed that the redhead's eyes were keener than his.

Asuka refused to answer him, though, and Shinji was forced to wait until they'd gotten a little closer before he could read it.

He groaned. "Oh, no."

The billboard read "The Three Stooges' Greatest Hits."

"We're not," he said to her, caught between amusement and disbelief.

"We _are_," she said, heading toward the theater. Shinji sighed and followed her.

* * *

Misato was not quite sure how she'd ended up on the dance floor with Kaji.

She had told herself, sternly and repeatedly, that she would not dance with her ex-boyfriend. She would not let going to a wedding turn her to thoughts of romance.

Yet here she was, twirling around the floor to a slow song with Kaji.

"You've been very quiet tonight," he commented, whispering in her ear.

"I've had a lot on my mind," she replied.

"The kids?" he asked.

"Certainly not you," she said, but she couldn't manage to put any heat into her voice. The words came out in an almost playful tone.

"No need to worry about them," he reassured her with an amused grin. "The two of them are more mature than they seem sometimes, and they've been getting along quite well lately."

"I've noticed that, too," Misato said softly, abruptly feeling like she was entering dangerous territory.

She didn't want to talk about the changes she'd noticed in Asuka's demeanor lately, or what she suspected were the reasons for them. Especially with Kaji, who knew the redhead about as well as she did.

Fortunately, Kaji didn't seem inclined to take the conversation in that direction. "If those two get much closer, Asuka may well forget all about me."

That got an amused smirk out of her. "And wouldn't that just be terrible for you?"

He smiled wryly. "More like a relief, and you know it," he said. "Besides, I'm a one-woman kind of man anyway."

"Ha! That'll be the day," Misato grumbled.

"Oh, I can be a one woman man," he said, as he twirled her, "so long as the woman is beautiful, smart, strong…and a complete animal in the sack." He added in an undertone.

Misato rolled her eyes.

"The problem is," Kaji continued, "I only ever met one woman like that."

He smiled at her, and he was a handsome bastard when he smiled.

"Damn it," she breathed, pulling out of his grip and heading off the dance floor.

Unsurprisingly, Kaji quickly followed her. "What's the matter?" he asked. "Did I do something wrong?"

Misato hesitated. Much as she might like to pretend otherwise, Kaji was making her feel things she hadn't experienced in years, things she'd told herself that she never _wanted_ to feel again. Yet now that she was, she found she couldn't make herself believe that she wasn't enjoying it.

She could be setting herself up for another tragic end, but…

"No, you didn't do anything wrong," she told him. "I just need a drink. Gotta take advantage of the open bar, right?"

* * *

Shinji and Asuka were still laughing when they got back to the apartment building that evening.

"Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk," the Third Child said as they entered the lobby and headed for the elevator.

Asuka giggled. "You see? You might like to deny it, but the role of 'stooge' fits you like a glove, Third."

Shinji shook his head ruefully. "You know, it's funny. I'd heard of the Three Stooges before—I think everyone has. But I never actually watched them until tonight."

"I'm not surprised," Asuka said. "I mean, their shows are so ancient they're in black and white, and they're all in English, too. I'd seen a couple, back when I was still letting NERV keep me cooped up at the base, but only because one of my old guardians happened to like that kind of stuff."

"My point is that before I didn't really know who you were comparing me to, all those times you called me and my friends the Three Stooges," Shinji said. "Now that I do…"

Asuka smirked at him. "What are you gonna do about it?" she challenged him.

Shinji held her gaze for a moment, then he smiled ruefully and shook his head.

"Ha! I thought so," Asuka said triumphantly. "Look, if it makes you feel any better, though, you're a good class of stooge. Unlike your two friends, who are doomed to be Larry and Curly forever, you're definitely a Moe."

"Gee, thanks," he said sarcastically, getting a hearty laugh out of her.

"You're welcome, Moe," Asuka replied cheerfully.

A moment of awkward silence followed. They were both back in the apartment by this point, and it was late. They both should have headed off to bed, but the two teens hesitated, reluctant to part ways.

"Thanks," Shinji said finally.

"Huh? What for?" Asuka asked, tilting her head slightly to the side.

"For tonight," he answered, suddenly looking very bashful. "I thought for sure that I'd be feeling down for the rest of the week. If somebody had told me that I'd be feeling, well, _good_ tonight, I would've told them they were crazy, but I had a great time. You…you made me feel happy."

Something about this frank admission made Asuka's heart start beating a little faster, and she could feel heat suddenly blooming in her cheeks.

"Well, what did you expect?" she asked, trying to cover up her reaction with braggadocio. "To spend time with the Great Asuka Langley Soryu is to know true joy."

He smiled wryly at her. "Well, I don't know about you, but I'll be useless tomorrow if I don't get to bed," he said. "Good night, Asuka."

He turned to head to his room. Asuka was going to let him go, she really was. However, she was suddenly seized by a sudden impulse (or perhaps it was an abrupt fit of conscience) and grabbed his shoulder.

"Wait a minute, Shinji," she said, and he turned back around to give her a curious look.

"Yes?"

"I…I had a good time with you, too," she said, surprised at how difficult it was to make even this little admission to him, to give him this. "It was a lot more pleasant than that sorry excuse for a date Hikari set me up on, that's for sure."

He smiled at that, one of his extremely rare, toothy grins, and Asuka felt her heartbeat accelerate a little further. Whatever the baka's failings, she couldn't deny (to herself, at least) that was he cute when he smiled like that.

She became acutely aware that she still had her hand on his shoulder; his flesh felt very warm through the thin cotton fabric of his shirt.

Then, and she honestly couldn't have said exactly how or when it happened, she found herself slowly leaning toward him. She realized a moment later that he was also leaning toward her, his eyes half-lidded.

_Gott, what am I __**doing?**_ She wondered, her mind racing even as her body seemed to move of its own accord.

This wasn't happening, the redhead told herself. This _couldn't_ be happening. She wasn't mere seconds away from kissing baka-Shinji. She was just…lingering. She'd had a nice night, and she was sorry to see it come to an end. But any second now she would pull back, wish Shinji good night, and that would be that.

Reall—

No, _not_ really.

Surrendering herself to what suddenly seemed inevitable, Asuka slid her eyes closed, her lips parting slightly.

Then the door to the apartment opened, and Shinji and Asuka practically leapt away from one another.

"Hey, kids," Kaji said as he entered, oblivious to what he'd interrupted. He was half-carrying a barely conscious Misato.

The two EVA pilots traded a glance, both of them blushing heavily. Neither said a thing until Kaji started looking suspicious, and Shinji forced himself to speak.

"Is Misato all right?"

"Oh, she's fine, she's just had a little too much to drink," the long-haired man said.

Neither teenager was fooled; they both knew that Misato had had a _lot_ too much to drink that night, but they were far too preoccupied by what had almost happened to comment.

"Do you think you can get her to bed from here?" Kaji continued.

"Um, sure," Shinji said, and went to take Misato.

Their inebriated guardian practically lay across his back once they'd made the transfer, and it was obvious that the Third Child was only barely strong enough to support her weight.

Asuka couldn't be bothered with that at the moment. She quickly chased after Kaji, who'd started heading for the door the moment that he'd handed Misato off to Shinji.

"Kaji, wait," she said.

But the man of her dreams just gave her a happy yet tired smile. She knew that she wasn't the one who'd put it there.

"Good night, Asuka," he said, and then he was gone.

The redhead sighed heavily and leaned against the wall, a wild mess of emotions churning inside her. She was fairly certain that Kaji and Misato had done more than simply fulfill a social obligation that day; something about the look in the man's eyes had even made her think they'd rekindled something between them, and that upset Asuka. Yet not as much as it should have.

She felt strangely like she had just woken up from a dream. Part of her could barely believe that she and Shinji had come so close to doing…that, and she felt appalled at herself for allowing it to happen, as well as strangely disappointed that they'd been interrupted.

_Gott, what the hell is with me lately?_ She wondered.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the apartment, Shinji was feeling less conflicted about the whole thing.

"Couldn't you have come home five minutes later?" he asked Misato.

"Eh?" was his guardian's less than eloquent response.

He sighed. "Never mind."

* * *

Halfway across the world from Japan, Hasan sighed deeply as he looked at the withered remains of one of his coffee bean plants. The life of a farmer was one of toil, but the life of an Ethiopian farmer was one of toil _and_ misery.

"Sometimes I don't know why I bother trying any more," he muttered to himself as he surveyed the rest of his similarly unimpressive crop.

His country had been plagued by drought before the Second Impact. Now, with the climate changes that cataclysm had wrought, Hasan couldn't help but wonder if his homeland was doomed to eventually become one big desert.

"Not that it matters, I suppose," he muttered to himself.

He would remain as long as possible, continuing to eke out an existence until he simply couldn't any longer. Only once that happened would he leave his home. Until then, he would go on as he always had, and nothing exciting would happen.

Of course, the moment he had the thought, Hasan saw something twinkle in the sky.

"A star?" he muttered to himself.

But that was impossible; it was the middle of the day. He shouldn't be able to see any stars in the sky for hours yet, and in any case, stars were white.

The thing that was twinkling in the sky was green.

Hasan continued to stare at it for several seconds, a frown on his face as he tried to figure out what the green "star" was.

That it appeared to be getting bigger was something he realized only gradually. He wasn't sure of it at first, thinking that it was merely a trick of the light, or of his own mind. Eventually, though, he became certain that it did look like it was growing larger.

Which, he realized, meant that it was getting _closer_.

_That_ knowledge kicked Hasan into action. The man began to run away as fast as his legs would carry him, but he didn't manage to get very far away before the green thing struck the ground with a thunderous crash, kicking up a huge cloud of dust and destroying any number of his withered coffee plants.

"What _was_ that?" he wondered to himself, coughing as he tried to fan away some of the dust.

Eventually, the cloud dissipated and Hasan dared to approach the impact site. There was a deep crater where the…thing had hit, and he gingerly peered over the edge.

"What in the world is that?" he breathed as he gazed down at the softly glowing green boulder below him.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** A slow chapter. After dealing with the Parasite for two chapters, I thought Asuka could use one.

Not much else to say here, so, as always, thanks to my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta reader as well.

Now for some fun.

Omakes!

* * *

"Misato the Wonder Guardian"

It was an average morning in the Katsuragi apartment, completely normal in every respect.

Which was to say, Asuka and Misato were bickering over breakfast, while Shinji was just trying to eat and be away before either of them noticed him and tried to get him to pick a side.

"Damn it, Misato, I just want to go and hang out with Hikari after school!" the redhead exclaimed. "I don't see why that's such a big deal!"

"It's a big deal because your grades aren't as good as they could be," Misato replied sternly. "You can do better in school than you are, Asuka, and you're going to stay home tonight and study."

"Oh, come on! I already have a college degree. You're only sending me to junior high so you can tell yourself I'm living a normal life when I'm not piloting a giant death machine!" Asuka said. "Besides, the only reason I'm not acing everything is because I'm still having trouble with the kanji."

"Then work on the kanji," Misato retorted. "You're not going out tonight, and that's that."

Asuka ground her teeth. "All right, I didn't want to do this, but you've left me no choice!" grabbing her shirt with both hands, the redhead tugged, instantly reducing it to shreds and revealing the Supergirl costume she had on underneath. "I'm Supergirl. I'm about a million times stronger than you, and I say I'm going out tonight, and there's nothing you can do about it." She said smugly.

Misato smirked, then took hold of her black top, ripping it off and revealing the Amazonian leotard she had underneath. It was exactly like Wonder Girl's, only larger and with a "G" instead of a "W."

"I have super strength, too," Misato said. "Wonder Guardian says you're not going out tonight."

"Well…damn," Asuka grumbled, then happened to glance toward Shinji. The boy was wiping at his bleeding nose with a napkin. "Ack! You _pervert!_"

Surprisingly, Shinji didn't just stammer out an apology. "Oh, gee, I'm so sorry," he said sarcastically. "I don't know why I'm reacting like this. It's not like I'm surrounded by beautiful women who are _tearing their own clothes off_ or anything."

"…you know, he's got a point," Misato said.

"Yeah, I guess he does," Asuka agreed reluctantly.

* * *

Five Minutes Later, Take One

"Honestly, Misato, drinking until you get sick? I would have thought you were too mature for that by now," Kaji grumbled as he half carried Misato toward the door to her apartment.

"Kaji…there are some things a woman just can't say to her ex when she's sober," Misato said, clearly going a for a tone of sagely wisdom. She might've succeeded, too, if she wasn't slurring so badly.

"Fine, but couldn't you have waited until we got a little closer to your place to get this badly bombed?" Kaji asked.

Misato just grunted wordlessly by way of reply. Sighing, Kaji completed the journey to Misato's front door, opening it and stepping inside.

What they found sobered up Misato instantly.

"Oh god! Shinji! Asuka! Not in my apartment!" she exclaimed. "Not until you're sixteen, at the youngest! And _not on the kitchen floor!_"

Shinji and Asuka, of course, cheerfully ignored her.

"Damn it, Kaji! Say something!" Misato snapped.

Kaji was only too happy to comply. "Well done, Shinji! I knew you had it in you!" he said. "Now, you'll want to make sure to use your—"

_"Don't encourage them!"_ Misato shrieked.

* * *

Five Minutes Later, Take Two

"Honestly, Misato, drinking until you get sick? I would have thought you were too mature for that by now," Kaji grumbled as he half carried Misato toward the door to her apartment.

"Kaji…there are some things a woman just can't say to her ex when she's sober," Misato said, clearly going a for a tone of sagely wisdom. She might've succeeded, too, if she wasn't slurring so badly.

"Fine, but couldn't you have waited until we got a little closer to your place to get this badly bombed?" Kaji asked.

Misato just grunted wordlessly by way of reply. Sighing, Kaji completed the journey to Misato's front door, opening it and stepping inside.

"Hello?" he called, not seeing anyone. Nobody answered.

"Where are the kids?" Misato managed to mumble.

"I don't…wait, here's a note," he said, grabbing a piece of paper that had been attached to the fridge by a magnet.

"What's it say?" Misato asked.

"'Going to Vegas to get hitched. Be back in time for breakfast.'" Kaji read. "It's signed by both Shinji and Asuka."

"Wha?" Misato gasped, alarmed.

"Oh, calm down. It's just a joke." Kaji chuckled. "Never knew Shinji had a sense of humor."

"He doesn't," Misato said anxiously, clearly still thinking that the message was for real.

"He must," Kaji said. "I mean, even assuming that they wanted to do this, how on earth could they get from Tokyo-3 to Vegas and back in one night?"

Misato frowned for a moment, then her eyes widened. "Uh-oh…"


	13. Chapter 12

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC comics or anything associated with it and am making no profit off this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Twelve: **The Days After

"_Gooood_ morning, everyone!"

This exuberant greeting came from Misato as she bounced into the kitchen, looking almost freakishly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for the early hour, especially compared to her usual morning demeanor. She was still clad in her barely there pajamas, though.

"I don't know about you two, but I slept great," the purple haired woman told Shinji and Asuka as she made her way to the fridge and got herself a beer, which she downed in one long gulp. "_YEEE-HAAW!_"

"Someone's in a good mood today," Shinji grumbled, not looking away from the stove, where he was cooking breakfast.

"And somebody's not," their guardian noted with a frown. "What's wrong, Shinji? Wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?" Misato asked, tilting her head slightly to the side.

"I didn't sleep very well," he said. "And you should remember that just because you had a great weekend, it doesn't mean that everyone else did." He added crossly.

"Hmm? Why, I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about, Shinji Ikari," Misato said, her the slight blush that crept into her cheeks belying her words.

"C'mon, Misato, it's obvious that you and Kaji got back together last weekend," Shinji said as he turned off the stove and started to dish out breakfast.

"There's nothing going on between Kaji and me," the purple-haired woman insisted.

Just then, the phone rang. Misato's answering machine, which she'd apparently set improperly (again), picked up on the first ring, and Kaji's voice could soon be heard from the little box.

"Hey, Katsuragi! I've found a bar that serves a decent drink. How about tonight? Ciao."

Shinji glared at the answering machine the entire time Kaji was leaving his message. If looks could kill, the thing probably would have melted.

"You were saying?" Shinji asked as he put the plates down on the table.

Misato just chuckled sheepishly as she sat down to eat, her gaze flicking first to Shinji and then to Asuka. In contrast to the Third Child's irritable mood, the redhead ate silently, a pensive expression on her face.

_Geeze, what is up with those two this morning? It's like they've switched personalities,_ Misato thought. _And why does Shinji care that I got back together with Kaji? I wouldn't be surprised if Asuka was breathing fire over it, but Shinji has no reason to…uh-oh._

Misato sighed softly, thinking that her day had just gotten a lot more complicated.

* * *

When a very large, glowing green rock had crashed smack dab in the middle of one of his coffee bean plant fields, Hasan hadn't been happy. With the often erratic weather patterns of the post-Impact world making the life of an Ethiopian farmer even more difficult than it had been prior to that cataclysm, he could ill afford to lose any of his crop.

However, he'd continued on, doing his best to repair the damage to his field.

Then the two men in the expensive looking clothes had shown up and had demanded to see the meteorite.

"Where exactly did you say you two were from again?" Hasan asked as he followed the two of them, who were moving at a pace almost too brisk for him to keep up with.

"A government agency," one of them answered curtly. He didn't bother to elaborate or flash a badge, as though he thought the exquisitely tailored black business suit he wore was proof enough of his station. Wearing such dark colors under the midday sun should have left the man roasting, but so far as Hasan could tell, he was as cool as a cucumber.

The other man, who wore a white lab coat over a sloppily arranged shirt and tie, hadn't said a word so far. Hasan was starting to suspect he didn't speak any of the locally used languages.

"Could you be more specific?" Hasan asked. "I didn't catch either of your names."

"That's because we didn't throw them," the one in the dark suit said brusquely.

The coffee farmer resisted the urge to swear very loudly. As if that damned meteorite hadn't caused him enough trouble already, now it had brought these two to his land.

Hasan wasn't stupid. He knew that even space rocks didn't normally glow green, and he'd long suspected that it might be radioactive. His always precarious financial situation didn't give him the option of abandoning the field where the rock lay, and it was too large for him to move, but he'd unconsciously made a habit of placing a hand over his groin whenever he got close to the thing, as if that would offer him any meaningful protection.

If the two men from the "government agency" shut down his farm, he was ruined.

The strangest part was that both of the men looked Asian, and Hasan was quite sure that there weren't many people of that ethnic background in the Ethiopian government.

Finally, the group reached the place where the meteorite sat, still in the crater it had made when it struck the Earth. Watching the two other men, Hasan could only wonder why the hell he had never bothered to simply bury the damn thing.

The man in the white coat reached into his pocket and removed a Geiger counter. Hasan winced when the gadget began to crackle loudly.

Then the two men began to speak to one another in Japanese, a language of which the farmer knew not a word.

* * *

"Well?" asked the man in the dark suit. "What do you think, Eiji?"

"Are you sure this guy can't speak Japanese, Kazuo?" asked his companion in the lab coat, casting a glance in Hasan's direction.

"Pretty sure, now spill," Kazuo demanded.

The scientist gave the other man a look, answering the question in an undertone. "It's definitely Mineral-K," he said. "The readings are identical to those from the piece Dr. Akagi has."

Kazuo smiled. "Good," he said. "We didn't come out here for nothing, then. So, what do you think it's worth?"

"Hmm," Eiji murmured thoughtfully. "Given the size of this piece, and going by Dr. Akagi's most conservative estimates on its likely output as reactor fuel, I'd say…easily 50 million US dollars."

Kazuo nodded, then turned to the farmer. Switching languages, he addressed Hasan. "Sir, we want to buy your meteorite," he said. "How does ten thousand US dollars sound?"

The look on Hasan's face made it obvious that the man couldn't believe this incredible stroke of luck.

* * *

Generally speaking, Shinji enjoyed sync tests. In this, he was most definitely the odd man out at NERV. Though she tried not to complain, it was only too obvious that Misato found overseeing them to be intensely boring. Asuka enjoyed bragging about her scores afterwards, but she found the tests themselves as dull as Misato did.

Unsurprisingly, Rei had never expressed any opinion about sync tests, but she certainly never smiled after taking one.

The Third Child, however, usually liked the peace and quiet, viewing it as a welcome reprieve from the insanity his life had become ever since he'd arrived in Tokyo-3. It also didn't hurt that, for reasons he could never quite figure out, he always felt very safe and comfortable inside the plug, at least when he wasn't engaged in actual combat against an Angel.

That day, however, Shinji found himself hating it. The last thing he wanted at the moment was to be confined in a quiet place where he was alone with his thoughts. Mostly because his thoughts were all currently centered around one thing: Asuka.

Ever since that night, he hadn't been able to get her out of his mind for more than a few seconds at a time. He couldn't even pretend that he hadn't developed serious feelings for her anymore, not with the way she was dominating his thoughts. That near kiss haunted his damn dreams, but even there, something always interrupted it (usually Misato and Kaji again, but a talking, switchblade-wielding Pen-Pen had served to end the encounter that one night after he'd eaten some sushi that was starting to go bad).

Of course, learning that Misato and Kaji had gotten back together that night, and were now an all too happy couple, only poured salt into the wound.

_This is __**insane**_**,**the Third Child finally concluded. Not that he hadn't already realized that, of course. _I'm going to go crazy if this keeps up. I have to do…something._

Unfortunately, there was only one obvious way to end his self-inflicted torment. He had to ask Asuka if she'd like to see a movie or something with him again and hope they'd end up reenacting the scene from the other night, _without_ any interruption this time.

Of course, asking a girl out on a date was a daunting prospect for a young teenage boy who'd never done it before, as Shinji certainly hadn't. It didn't help that he was a good deal more timid than normal, and that he had a feeling that if any attempt he made went wrong, it would go _spectacularly_ wrong. Under most other sets of circumstances, he probably wouldn't have even considered doing it, in fact.

_But she's been so nice to me lately, and we almost kissed,_ he thought. _Why would she have done that unless she maybe likes me a little, too?_

He didn't know, but he wasn't willing to completely discount the possibility that there was some reason. Asuka was difficult for him to figure out at the best of times, but still…

His right hand, which had been twitching in that nervous tic of his for the last several minutes, abruptly curled into a fist.

_This is nuts. I'm making myself crazier than I already am,_ he decided. _I'm going to ask her if she'd like to see a movie with me again this weekend as soon as I get a moment alone with her._

Unbeknownst to Shinji, as he was experiencing this surge of determination, the synchronograph monitoring his connection began to steadily tick upwards.

* * *

Misato hated the sync tests even more than Asuka hated the sync tests, and Asuka hated the sync tests a lot.

On the one hand, it felt very pointless for her to be there. On the other hand, if the pilots had to endure such boredom on a regular basis, her sense of duty compelled her to hang around the control room and suffer through it with them.

So, part of her was always tempted to leave, but she felt too guilty to actually do it.

"How much longer is this test gonna take, Rits?" Misato asked as she spun around in a swivel chair.

The bottle blonde scientist rolled her eyes. "God, you're like a kid on a car trip, you know that?" she asked. "'Mommy, are we there yet?'" she added in a high pitched voice that was supposed to sound like that of a child but didn't really.

"Just answer the question, Rits," the Ops Director grumbled, leaning her head back so she was staring at the ceiling.

"You asked me the same thing exactly five minutes ago, and I told you then," the scientist said. "Do the math."

"No," Misato replied, a small smirk appearing on her face.

Ritsuko sighed in a long suffering sort of way. "What's with you today, anyway?" she asked. "You and Kaji just got back together over the weekend, right? Shouldn't you be in a more chipper mood?"

"Well…" Misato began.

"Or is Kaji not the man he was back in college?" Ritsuko asked with a smirk, waggling her eyebrows up and down a little.

"Oh, shut the hell up," the Ops Director grumped. "And I'll have you know that we're doing just fine in _that_ department, thank you very much."

Suddenly becoming serious, Ritsuko glanced at the handful of technicians monitoring the test. They were either absorbed in her work or doing a very good job of looking like they were. Moving a little closer to her friend, she spoke in a much quieter voice than she'd been using a minute ago.

"So what's wrong then?" she asked.

"…I'm worried about Shinji," Misato confessed.

Ritsuko blinked. "So?" she asked. "You're always worried about Shinji."

Misato rolled her eyes. "This is different," she said, as though that explained everything.

The bottle blonde frowned. "Different how?"

Misato rubbed the back of her neck, looking unusually uncomfortable. "I think he's got a crush on me," she said. "A big one."

Ritsuko's eyes narrowed. "And what makes you think that?" she asked.

"It's the way he's been acting lately," Misato said. "Ever since Kaji and I got back together, he's been preoccupied, and, well, kind of ticked off. Then this morning, Kaji calls and the machine picks up. You should've seen the look Shinji gave it. He almost looked like the Commander when somebody tells him a project is behind schedule." She shuddered.

"I see," Ritsuko said, nodding.

"Yeah," Misato sighed, her shoulders slumping. "I don't know what to do, Rits. I was expecting _Asuka_ to be furious when she found out I'm dating 'her' precious Kaji again, but Shinji's reaction just came straight out of left field. I don't know how to dissuade him without breaking the poor kid's heart."

"That is quite the conundrum," Ritsuko agreed. "Well, good luck."

Misato scowled. "'Good luck'? That's it? That's the best you can do?" she grumbled.

Ritsuko shrugged. "What do you want from me?" she asked. "If you had a busted computer, I could fix it for you, but I have no damn idea how to handle teenagers. Besides, I think you only have yourself to blame for this situation."

Misato's right eye twitched. "And just why do you say that, smartass?"

"Come on, Misato, think about it," Ritsuko said. "What do _expect_ a teenage boy like Shinji to do when he gets taken in by a beautiful older woman? The kind of stuff you wear when you're loafing around your apartment probably didn't help anything, either. Honestly, I'm just surprised this didn't happen sooner."

"Well, you're a lot of help," Misato grumped.

"The test is completed," Maya announced, bringing an end to the two women's conversation.

"Good," Ritsuko said, walking over the terminal where the technicians were working as the test plugs opened up to reveal the pilots.

"So, how'd we do?" Asuka asked, stretching widely.

Ritsuko looked at one of the technician's monitors, and her eyebrows went up. "Now that's unexpected…" she remarked to no one in particular.

"What?" Asuka asked, frowning.

"You and Shinji are tied. Your ratios are exactly same right down to a hundredth of a percent," she answered.

"What?" Asuka squawked. "What about when you go down to a thousandth of a percent? Whose ratio is higher then?" she demanded.

Ritsuko shrugged. "Our equipment's not that sensitive," she answered. "Frankly, it wouldn't make any significant difference, anyway. You'll just have to get used to sharing the top spot, Asuka, at least until the next sync test."

Wordlessly, the redhead turned to glare at the Third Child. For his own part, Shinji looked more crestfallen than intimidated, almost as though he just as distraught about the test results as Asuka.

* * *

Sato Koshi prided himself on being a reasonable, down to earth sort of man. His post as the chief of Technical Division Two demanded it.

Technical Division Two wasn't like Technical Division One.

Tech Div One did most of the work creating the Evangelions. Tech Div One maintained the insanely powerful supercomputer at the center of the base, the one that could practically think for itself. Tech Div One concerned itself with AT Fields, as well as the physiology and genetic makeup of the giant monsters coming to kill them.

Tech Div Two, on the other hand, designed and built the Evangelion-scale guns used in combat against the Angels. They'd created the electromagnetic "catapults" that delivered the Evangelions from the cages to the surface in record time. They'd made the gigantic mirrors which redirected sunlight from the surface down into the Geofront.

In other words, while Tech Div One's work had a decidedly metaphysical bent and an undeniable science fiction feel to it, Tech Div Two's labors were, though unquestionably important and still very impressive, far less mind boggling in nature.

Or, as Koshi himself had once summed it up: "Akagi's department plays with God's toys, or just plain plays God. Tech Div Two builds engineering marvels."

So it was his commitment to keeping the work of his department firmly in the realm of pre-established scientific theories that compelled him to speak up when Commander Ikari summoned Koshi to his cavernous office and showed him design requirements for a new type of reactor he wanted made.

Even though he hated and feared to say anything that sounded like a "no" to Gendo Ikari.

"I'm very sorry, sir, but I really don't think this is feasible," Koshi said as he looked at the papers the Commander had handed him.

He could barely believe Ikari was even bothering with such an absurd list of requirements; he knew that the Commander had a background in science. The man should've simply known better.

Which wasn't to say Koshi was going to _tell_ Ikari how absurd what he was asking for was. Hell, no.

The Commander reached up and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, looking unfazed. "And why do you say that?" he asked.

"Well," Koshi began, doing his best not to squirm under the force of the other man's cold stare, "both Dr. Akagi's department and my own looked into the possibility of incorporating a reactor of some sort into the Evangelions, in order to eliminate the need for the power cables, and we both reached the same conclusion. Not only would a nuclear reactor be too bulky, but the risk of meltdown or some other catastrophic failure was too high, given the abuse the EVA Units were, and still are, likely to take. None of that's changed since then, sir. Just because you order me and my department to create a reactor that doesn't have those problems, it doesn't make doing it possible."

Ikari frowned. It looked more like an expression of confusion than displeasure to Koshi, but he couldn't be sure. Distantly, the man decided that he really hated the Commander's office.

"You missed the page about the new reactor fuel," the Commander eventually pointed out.

Blinking, Koshi quickly riffled through the papers, quickly finding the one Ikari was talking about. His eyes widened as he read it.

"The predicted output seems incredible, as does this part about the 'clean radiation'," he noted. "Commander, just what _is_ this 'Mineral-K' stuff? Is it…real?"

"Very real," Ikari answered. "NERV has already acquired a small sample, while operatives should obtain several tons more shortly, if they haven't already."

"But what is it?" Koshi asked, his curiosity overriding his fear of the Commander. "Where did it come from?"

"Dr. Akagi believes it is extraterrestrial in origin," Ikari answered. "Honestly, I don't care where it came from. The only thing that matters to me is whether you can use it to improve the Evangelions."

Koshi looked down at the papers concerning Mineral-K again. "Well, it looks as if Dr. Akagi and her people have worked out all the science of using this stuff as a reactor fuel," he said. "Technical Division Two should be able to handle the engineering aspect of it easily."

"Good," Ikari said. "This is now your department's first priority. I want it done as soon as possible."

"Yes, sir," Koshi said, then, taking the dismissal for what it was, he turned and headed for the door, papers in hand.

Looking at them as he left, his brow furrowed as he noticed one of the design requirements assigned to him.

_Now that's strange,_ he thought. _Why on earth would Ikari want the reactors designed so they can do __**that?**_

Then he shrugged, deciding that he'd really questioned the Supreme Commander of NERV enough for one day.

He'd almost made it back to his office when the alarm klaxons started going off.

* * *

Even by the standard set by all the previous Angels, the Twelfth was weird. A perfectly round, zebra-striped sphere the size of a city block, it floated just above the city's skyscrapers at a slow, constant pace. Perfectly silent, it looked almost tranquil, like the world's biggest helium balloon.

Asuka didn't think she'd ever been so happy to see an Angel.

Ever since that night, she felt like she'd been living in some bizarre dream world. One where she could muster only a token amount of anger over Misato stealing Kaji from her, and where Shinji was (gott help her) starting to look like an…almost…sort of…just barely…_acceptable_ alternative to the man of her dreams.

Tying in that sync test with Shinji had been her wakeup call, reminding her that whatever the hell else was going on in her life, Evangelion—and being the best pilot—was the most important thing.

This Angel gave her the chance to prove that despite Shinji's abrupt sync surge, she was still the best.

"All right, guys," Misato's voice made its way into her entry plug, "the MAGI are trying to figure this Angel out, but for right now, we don't know anything about it. So be _careful_."

"I have point!" Asuka exclaimed, almost before the Ops Director had finished.

Misato frowned. "Yes, you do," she agreed, "but because that's what _I_ decided. You can't call point like you'd call shotgun, Asuka."

"Whatever," she said as she commanded Unit Two to move forward.

"Unit Zero moving to support Unit Two," Rei said.

"Uh, I'm…I mean, Unit One moving in as well," Shinji replied.

He gave her a quick, worried look before the communications window from the test type EVA winked out on Asuka's HUD. The redhead chose to ignore it.

A seventy meter tall war machine like Evangelion didn't really do stealth, but Asuka moved as carefully as possible as she approached the Angel, using the many skyscrapers which couldn't retract into the Geofront as cover. Occasionally, she used her X-ray vision to look straight through the buildings, ensuring that she never lost sight of it.

She also tried using her X-ray vision to look inside the Angel itself, but the thing remained as stubbornly opaque to her eyes as it would have to those of a normal human.

The whole time, the Angel just continued on its way, never changing course or even speeding up. If it knew the Evangelions were there, it didn't care.

"Shinji, Rei, you two in position yet?" Asuka asked.

"Nearly," Rei responded curtly.

"Uh, almost," Shinji replied. "Give me another minute. I need to change power cables."

Asuka scowled, fidgeting in her seat despite herself. Normally, she would have just charged in without waiting for the other two to get ready, but, for once, she found herself in the position of wanting to do things strictly by the book.

Not that her opinion of "the book" had risen any; the Second Child still thought the regulations and protocols were as pointless as ever. However, she wanted a victory that was beyond rebuke in order to prove beyond any doubt that she was still the best pilot, which unfortunately meant following all the stupid rules.

"Geeze, don't hurry or anything," she grumbled, too softly for the microphone inside her plug to pick up. "It's not like this is important."

She shifted the pallet rifle in Unit Two's grip, suddenly realizing that she was making her crimson EVA hold it with the same feather-light touch she herself had to apply to _everything_ now, lest she break things. With a thought, she commanded the war machine to hold the weapon in a firmer grip; the recoil would send the rifle flying from Unit Two's hands if she fired the weapon while holding it like that.

"Come on, guys," she grumbled to her fellow pilots.

"I am in position," Rei announced.

"Me too," Shinji added a moment later.

Asuka turned to look at the Angel. It was still floating lazily by, and still very much within range of her pallet rifle.

With a thought, she opened a communications link to NERV HQ, and a window showing Misato appeared on her HUD. "It's now or never," the redhead said.

The Ops Director bit her lower lip, clearly not liking the idea of having the Evangelions attack an Angel they knew virtually nothing useful about. However, Asuka wasn't worried; though the Second Child had a low opinion of many of Misato's personal habits, she would never accuse the older woman of being a weak or overly cautious commanding officer.

"Do it," Misato said.

Asuka nodded. "Be ready to back me up," she ordered the other two pilots.

Then, she emerged from behind the cover of the skyscraper just long enough to fire a short burst from her rifle at the Angel.

The instant one of the massive shells made contact with the Angel, it seemed to wink out of existence, only to reappear the instant they had passed it. Asuka's eyes widened, first at this unexpected disappearing act, and then at the unsettling sinking sensation she was feeling…

Looking down, Asuka saw that the street below her had been consumed in inky darkness, which Unit Two's feet were slowly starting to sink into. It felt like mud. Very cold, dark mud.

"What the hell?" she exclaimed, barely able to keep a lid on her rising panic. "No!"

She pointed her rifle down at the void and fired a long burst, but the blackness just swallowed the shells as easily as it had swallowed the street and sidewalks.

"Get out of there, Asuka!" Misato barked. "Now!"

The Second Child didn't need to be told twice. Carelessly tossing her useless rifle aside, she quickly grabbed hold of the building she'd been using as cover and started to scale it. The structure began to tilt as its foundation was eaten by the Angel below her, making it difficult to climb, but Asuka hadn't been training to pilot EVA so long for nothing. She held on, doggedly making her way up the side of the building.

_I should reach the top in a few seconds,_ she thought, aware of the chatter coming in over her radio (apparently, the shadow of the sphere was the true Angel, while the sphere was actually a shadow, or something crazy like that) but she paid it no mind. _Once I'm on the roof, I should be able to use the other buildings around here to "hopscotch" my way out of the shadow._

It was a fairly solid plan, all in all, especially considering how little time she'd had to think of something. However, even the best laid plans had their flaws, and the weakness in Asuka's plan turned out to be the building she was climbing; it had not been designed to withstand having giant robots climbing up the side of it.

A ledge that Asuka had been using as a handhold broke off in Unit Two's grip, sending the crimson titan falling toward the abyss, despite Asuka's best efforts to get a hold of the building again.

"Crap, crap, _crap!_" she swore, even as she went into action.

With only seconds to keep Unit Two from landing on its back—an outcome which was sure to see her and her Evangelion lost to the abyss—Asuka had only one recourse.

Her fist came down on a rarely used button inside the entry plug, and the redhead only barely remembered to moderate the amount of force she used on it. The retro rockets concealed in Unit Two's armor emerged and fired, causing Asuka's world to spin crazily for a moment. However, she was able to exercise just enough control over the process to achieve her goal, namely getting Unit Two to land feet first.

That didn't mean she was out of danger yet, though. The scarlet Evangelion sank almost up to its knees in the ebony void beneath it the moment it impacted, and it took a good deal of undignified flailing to stabilize Unit Two and prevent it from falling over anyway.

Finally having gotten her Evangelion relatively steady again, Asuka quickly looked around, trying to determine her next step, only to realize that she didn't have one. There was no structure within arm's reach of Unit Two that she could use to pull her EVA's legs free, and raising the crimson Evangelion's feet out of the inky darkness without something to hold onto quickly proved impossible.

"Asuka, what are you doing?" Misato demanded. "Get out of there, now!"

"I can't!" the redhead snapped. "I'm stuck!"

"Damn it," the Ops Director cursed, her tone vehement but soft. If Asuka didn't have superhumanly keen ears, she wouldn't have heard it. "Shinji, Rei, can you get to Unit Two?" she asked in a much louder voice.

"Unlikely," was Rei's blunt response.

"I don't know," Shinji said dubiously. "But I'll sure try." He added in a much more determined tone of voice.

Asuka turned to watch as Units Zero and One started to make their way toward her, leaping across the abyss by using half sunken buildings as stepping stones. Rei moved carefully, while Shinji advanced with a boldness that bordered on recklessness, barely pausing for even a moment as he vaulted from one structure to another, displaying a level of skill with his EVA that left the redhead feeling grudgingly impressed.

However, the Angel seemed to be swallowing the buildings around Unit Two more rapidly than the others, as though it knew that it had one of its enemies in its grasp and was deliberately denying the crimson Evangelion any possible avenue of escape. Shinji was forced to stop Unit One atop a building that was well out of Unit Two's reach, where the purple Evangelion stared helplessly at her.

"Asuka," Misato said gently, "you may have to eject."

"What?" she exclaimed, even though part of her knew that was coming. "No! No way! This thing will swallow Unit Two whole if I do that!"

"Asuka, it's going to swallow Unit Two whole either way," Misato said, her voice hardening. "I'd rather lose just it than have you go down with it. Eject!"

The command was so forceful that Asuka found her hand reaching for the ejection controls despite herself, but she stopped long before actually touching them, her mind whirling.

_It can't end like this,_ she thought, even as Unit Two sank up to its waist in the abyss. _It __**can't.**_

The thought of just abandoning her Evangelion—the thing she had worked and practiced with for so long, the thing she knew better than any other object on earth, the thing that made her _special,_ better than everyone else—chilled her right down to her core.

However…

She discovered to her consternation that there was another part of her, a tiny, rebellious part that _wanted_ the Evangelion gone. It _wanted_ to be rid of the thing she had poured so much of herself into, only to get so little in return. It _wanted_ to exit the only arena where she couldn't seem to excel, despite how much effort she expended and despite her incredible gifts.

It wanted to quit being the Second Child so she could be Supergirl more often.

Asuka, who had lived most of her life cherishing and jealously guarding her status as an Evangelion pilot, was nothing short of flabbergasted to discover this impulse within her, even if the larger part of her being simply felt nauseous at the thought of allowing Unit Two to sink into the void.

She hadn't been this surprised at herself when she'd discovered that she had the ability to fly without wings.

"Asuka, what are you doing?" Misato demanded, shaking the redhead out of her revere. "Eject!"

Her finger hovered over the ejection switch, suddenly symbolizing a very important choice. She could refuse to press it and go down with her Evangelion into an abyss she might never escape, the Second Child to the end.

Or she could hit the button and abandon it, allowing her to more fully embrace the role of Supergirl.

A pilot or a superhero.

Asuka couldn't believe how difficult it was to make the choice. Of course, it wasn't helping that the option she would normally be inclined to select now came with a very real possibility of death.

"Asuka!" Misato shouted. "Eject! What the hell are you waiting for?"

"I…" she started, then fell silent, still not knowing what to do or what to say. Unit Two had sunken up to its chest by this point. If it went much further into the blackness, she wouldn't be able to escape it.

"Asuka!" Shinji shouted.

Her head snapped to the side, and she saw Unit One, twirling its now detached power cord over its head like a lasso. With a grunt, the Third Child sent the cord sailing out toward Unit Two.

"Catch!" he yelled.

His throw was slightly off, sending the makeshift lifeline just a bit wide of her position. Asuka was forced to make Unit Two lean forward to have a chance at catching it, and she knew that her EVA would fall face first into the blackness if she missed.

Unit Two's fingertips brushed against the cord…she fumbled frantically for it…and managed to get a firm grip on it.

"Shinji! Pull!" she shouted.

The Third Child obeyed, grabbing the cord with both of Unit One's hands and tugging fiercely, ignoring the way that the building he was standing on was steadily sinking. For a moment, Unit Two didn't budge, and Asuka thought that Shinji's efforts had all been for nothing.

Then Unit Two began to slowly emerge from the abyss as it was pulled toward the test-type Evangelion. Asuka, all too aware of how limited their time was, did everything she could to speed her progress, even though she still felt as though she was caught in thick mud.

"Almost there!" Shinji grunted out.

"Less talking! More pulling!" Asuka snapped.

He complied, and with one more sharp tug, Unit Two went sprawling onto the building that Unit One stood upon.

That didn't mean they were safe yet, though; Shinji's little island in the dark sea was seconds away from disappearing.

"Come on!" she shouted as she forced Unit Two to scramble to its feet and leap to another, less sunken building.

Shinji followed immediately, but even so, he barely escaped before his platform finally vanished.

Once that hurdle was clear, though, the two pilots had a relatively easy time of making their way to the edge of the hungry shadow, and, finally, out of the danger zone.

They had escaped, and Asuka still had her Evangelion.

* * *

Later, Shinji sat inside Unit One's plug, waiting. The Angel mercifully had not moved after it had changed into an all-consuming black maw, allowing NERV the luxury of time after the Evangelions had escaped.

Shinji had been darkly amused when he'd found out that, after hours of study and letting the MAGI chew on all the relevant data about the Angel, the NERV scientists had decided that the best course of action was to throw all the boom they had into the thing.

"Are you guys sure you know the plan?" Misato asked the pilots over the radio.

"It's not exactly complicated, Misato," Shinji pointed out. "All we have to do is use our AT fields to contain the explosion from all the N2 mines."

Honestly, he could understand her concern, given the level of firepower involved, but being asked if they remembered the one-step plan over and over again had quickly become obnoxious.

_I guess it could be worse, though,_ he mused tiredly. _At least Misato didn't lecture __**me.**_

The Ops Director had _not_ been pleased about Asuka's failure to eject her plug, though she hadn't unleashed the rant that Shinji had expected. Apparently shaken, the redhead had been unusually subdued, accepting the rebuke without protest, and Misato didn't have the heart to really tear into her.

_I wonder why she seemed so freaked out,_ he thought.

He understood, of course, that almost being _eaten_ by an Angel had to be a jarring experience. Indeed, if it had been him, he'd probably still be shaking, but Shinji had long ago decided that Asuka was made of sterner stuff than he was.

"Okay, the bomb drop is in exactly thirty seconds," Misato announced. "Show time, guys."

"Right," Shinji said. "AT Field, full power!"

Just like the time he had caught the Tenth Angel, he put his entire focus into the invisible barrier his Evangelion generated. Except during that battle, he'd concentrated purely on making the field as powerful as possible.

This time he concentrated on size, expanding the barrier as much as he was able. Shinji could feel it growing wider, stretching out like rubber, then there was an almost audible "click" as his AT field found Asuka's and the two meshed together, followed by another when Rei's reached his.

Though it couldn't be seen with the naked eye, a massive triangular barrier now surrounded the Angel.

A moment later, Shinji heard jet engines from above, as a bomber squadron made its run over the city.

"I hope they have good aim," the Third Child remarked.

"Please, Shinji, try to rein in your enthusiasm," Misato quipped.

Bombay doors swung open, and out poured N2 bombs by the hundreds, totaling nearly a thousand in all, the JSSDF's entire stockpile. As it turned out, the bomber group's aim _was_ good, and every last one plunged right into the Angel, disappearing into the void.

A moment passed, then two.

Shinji sighed. _Nothing_, he thought. _Damn, I knew this was going to happen. I wonder what NERV will—?_

A thunderous _boom_ suddenly sounded, causing him to jump. Shinji was so surprised, he almost lost focus and allowed his AT field to disperse, but he caught himself at the last second.

It was a good thing, too, because right on the heels of the explosion of sound came a massive _column_ of white hot fire which erupted out of the Angel like a geyser. It pressed fiercely against the walls of the AT field the three pilots had erected, but ultimately failed to knock it down. Instead, the force of the blast was directed upwards, like a lance of fire, shot straight from hell at the heavens.

Shinji would learn later that the blast had actually brushed against the planet's ozone layer. He wouldn't be surprised.

Eventually, the light became so bright that he was forced to look away or be blinded. When at last the explosion, which seemed to have gone on for an eternity, came to an end, Shinji looked back to where their enemy had been, blinking away spots.

The Angel was gone, both the sphere and the shadow. All that was left in its place was a very deep, smoking crater.

"The MAGI are no longer picking up a blue pattern. It's dead," Makoto said, confirming what everyone's own eyes were telling them.

"All right, looks like it's a wrap," Misato said. "Everybody return to base."

A chorus of acknowledgements answered her, and the trio of Evangelions started heading for the nearest EVA lift.

Rei happened to be the closest one to it and went in first without a word. While Shinji was waiting for the lift to deposit Unit Zero inside the cage and return, a communications window from Unit Two appeared on his HUD.

"Hey, Shinji?"

He blinked. "Yes, Asuka?"

The redhead hesitated for a moment, looking distinctly uncomfortable. Then she plowed forward. "Thank you," she said. "You really saved me back there."

Hearing her words, the Third Child perked up immediately. He almost decided that this was the perfect moment to ask her if she'd like to see another movie with him that weekend.

Then Shinji took a closer look at her. Even displayed in a tiny communications window, the expression on Asuka's face told him that wouldn't be a good idea.

She wasn't happy; Shinji knew her well enough by this point to tell that much right off the bat. She felt obligated to thank him for saving her, but she wasn't at all pleased with the way the battle had unfolded. Asking her now was unlikely to yield the desired result.

So instead he just smiled, somewhat sadly, and replied. "You're welcome. I'm sure you would've done the same for me."

It seemed that he'd have to wait a little bit longer for that perfect moment.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Seems like this is the first chapter in forever where an Angel actually shows up in this fic. After the string of super villains, the Angels are going to be the main threat again for a while.

Not much else to say about this chapter, so as always, thanks to my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta reader as well.


	14. Chapter 13

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC comics or anything associated with it and am making no profit off this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Thirteen:** Misunderstandings and Desperate Measures

At the apartment he currently called home, Shinji Ikari was sitting in his room and attempting to get some homework done. It was a largely futile effort.

His redheaded flat mate continued to dominate his thoughts, regardless of what he tried to do to focus on other things, and math problems certainly weren't going to break that pattern.

_This is nuts,_ he thought for the thousandth or so time.

He was still committed to asking her out on a date as soon as an appropriate moment presented itself, but he was starting to think that would _never_ happen. Asuka had been rather distant ever since the battle with the Twelfth Angel, and the latest sync test had had him ahead of her by a few points.

Shinji couldn't think of a time where he'd been more distressed about winning something.

To his surprise, Asuka hadn't gotten angry about it, but she had pulled further away from him, becoming quieter and more thoughtful than before. It was odd, and he didn't like it all that much. At least if she'd gotten mad she would've seemed like herself.

"At this rate, the right moment will never come," he grumbled to himself as he finally gave up the ghost and abandoned his homework.

So perhaps he had to try and _create_ the right moment?

Usually such an exercise in taking the initiative wouldn't have even occurred to the Third Child. However, he had never experienced anything quite like his current fixation upon Asuka before.

Unfortunately, he had no damn idea how to actually go about doing it. Much as he loathed the idea, Shinji had to admit that it might be wise to seek advice from someone who was…wiser than him on this particular area.

Kaji seemed like a natural first choice for such a question, at least to Shinji, but the Third Child was still rather annoyed with the long-haired man. He knew it was irrational, but that didn't stop him from wanting to throttle Kaji.

_Maybe I could ask Misato,_ he mused.

Though sometimes flighty, his guardian seemed like someone who'd know about romance and the like, and she had known Asuka for significantly longer than he had. At the very least, she could offer him a woman's perspective on what might work and what probably wouldn't.

Of course, she would tease him absolutely mercilessly, but that was a price he was willing to pay. Getting up off his bed, Shinji headed for the door to his bedroom, determined to find Misato and seek her advice before he lost his nerve.

Only for the screen to slide aside before he could even touch it, revealing his guardian.

"Misato, I was just going to go looking for you," Shinji said, brightening somewhat.

"Really?" she asked. She seemed unusually serious, he noted with some anxiety. "Good, I guess, because I need to have a talk with you, Shinji."

"About what?" he asked nervously, suddenly afraid that something might be wrong. "Am I in trouble or something?"

"No! No, not at all," she rushed to reassure him. She placed a hand on his shoulder and guided him toward the bed, where the two sat down next to each other.

Then she muttered something under her breath about how awkward this was and needing more beer.

"Misato, you're worrying me," Shinji said. "What's this about?"

She took a deep breath. "Well," she said, "I've noticed how you've recently become very…taken with a certain someone you're close to around here."

Shinji's eyes widened. "Is it that obvious?" he asked in a small voice, mortified at the notion that he'd been broadcasting his feelings for Asuka to anyone who cared to notice.

"Oh no, not at all," she said so emphatically that his fears were mostly quelled. "I'm just very perceptive about these things. Good at picking up on certain cues, you know?"

"I guess so," Shinji said.

He didn't really, but that was okay. If Misato already knew about his feelings for Asuka, then asking her for advice should be significantly less of a labor than he'd expected.

"Anyway, Shinji, what I need to tell you is that sometimes things like that just…aren't meant to be," Misato said softly.

"What?" he asked.

"Please understand that I don't want to hurt you, Shinji-kun. In fact, I'm trying to do just the opposite, but the fact is that sometimes feelings like the ones you're experiencing can't end in anything _but_ some amount of pain," she said in a great rush, as though she'd rehearsed this part, placing her hand over one of his. "At times like those, it's best to acknowledge as soon as possible that there are certain couples who just weren't meant to be. It hurts less that way, and it lets people move on more quickly."

Shinji was silent for a long moment, his shoulders slumping as his guardian's words sank in.

Misato was telling him he had no chance with Asuka. To call that demoralizing would have been an understatement, and it was all the more brutal because his guardian was telling him this out of compassion, rather than malice.

_Well, of course I don't have a shot with Asuka,_ he thought disgustedly. _She's beautiful, and smart, and popular, and brave. What am I? Just messed up, cowardly Shinji Ikari. But…but…_

His free hand curled into a fist. "I understand what you're saying, Misato, and you're probably right, but I can't just give up," he said. "I can't."

"Now, Shinji…"

"I never felt like this before, Misato. Not ever," he continued, only dimly aware that his grip on her hand was tightening. "Who knows if I ever will again?"

"Oh, Shinji, you're very young still," she rushed to assure him. "There will be others for you."

"Maybe, maybe not," he said, his dark blue eyes meeting her brown ones. "But I still think I'll regret it forever if I don't at least try. If I do, and I get shot down, it'll hurt, a lot, but at least I won't always be wondering what might've been. Does that make any sense?"

"Oh, well, I guess," she stammered, suddenly looking very much like a deer caught in the headlights. "But…I, well…"

"Yes?"

"Oh! I think I hear Pen-Pen squawking! Maybe he's sick!" his guardian exclaimed abruptly. "I should go check on him!"

She wrenched her hand from his (Shinji had nearly forgotten that he'd been holding it), and then went peeling out of his room at top speed. Shinji could only sit on his bed, blinking at the now empty doorway in consternation. He hadn't heard Pen-Pen make so much as a peep for the last hour or so.

"That was…weird," he muttered to himself.

* * *

The population density of Tokyo-3 was extremely low compared to virtually every other urban area in the world, and in some ways, that was a good thing. In other Japanese cities, subway cars were frequently so crowded that people were packed inside like sardines, where in Tokyo-3 there was plenty of legroom for all. There was less litter on the streets, and spacious apartments were far cheaper.

Indeed, if one ignored the periodic giant monster attacks, Tokyo-3 was arguably the best city in all of Japan to live in.

However, all the free space did breed a few problems. Many of the older, less modern structures on the periphery of the city had been completely abandoned once the war with the Angels started in earnest, with attacks occurring seemingly every few weeks. The city had been having trouble with squatters, not to mention people who used the buildings as relatively secure sites for illegal drug sales and the like.

The group of people meeting in one particular structure on the edge of the city that day were much worse than mere drug dealers, though. This group was determined to bring about nothing less than global annihilation.

They were the last remnant of the cult known as the Light of the Divine. They were few in number now, and they no longer dared to wear their white robes. However, they all remained united in their genocidal purpose.

"I still think it's dangerous for us to meet like this," a man named Kou complained. "Just because the police haven't arrested us yet doesn't mean they don't suspect us. Any one of us could've been followed here."

"It was a necessary risk," answered another man by the name of Madoka. He was the highest ranking member of the organization left, which, by this point, really wasn't saying much. However, he obviously intended to use what influence his position gave him for all it was worth.

"Necessary for what?" Kou growled. "For getting shot by the police?"

Other members present echoed his comments. While they'd apparently felt obligated enough to show up, they clearly weren't very happy about it now that the risks of such a gathering had been pointed out.

"No," Madoka said. "For one last strike against those who would defy God's judgment."

"With just us?" Kou scoffed, gesturing to the small group of people. "You're insane."

"So what would _you_ do?" Madoka asked. "Have the Light of the Divine go quietly into this good night? Abandon our sacred mission once and for all?"

Kou scowled and crossed his arms, but he had no answer to that.

"What do _you_ want to do, Madoka?" asked a man named Kenichi.

"One final attack on the forces of evil," he answered. "It's not something we'll all come back from, and we won't completely neutralize NERV's ability to defy God's messengers. But if we do it right, we may well tip the balance of the war."

The handful of cultists traded looks with one another for a long, silent moment. When no one, not even Kou, raised any objection, Kenichi turned back to Madoka.

"What's the plan?"

* * *

"I don't see the need for this," Asuka grumped the next day as the pilots were led into the section of the base that Technical Division One called their own.

"We're performing a major upgrade on the Evangelions' hardware. We thought you might like to be informed," Ritsuko replied, not doing a very good job of masking the annoyance in her voice. "It is rather relevant to you."

"Informed is one thing, but I don't see why we need to watch you actually install this upgrade," Asuka countered. "You could have just sent us emails about it like you usually do."

"This is a very special upgrade, Asuka," Misato said, cutting in before the bottle blonde could respond with some biting remark that would only escalate the argument.

"Fine, whatever," the redhead grumbled. "We're practically there already anyway."

Misato relaxed slightly as that minor conflict was averted, glancing silently at Asuka, whose recent behavior had been, in its own way, far more confounding and perplexing to her than Shinji's. Though the redhead was more or less back to her (sometimes crabby) normal self so far as Misato could tell, the expected storm of anger and jealousy at learning that Kaji was off the market had never materialized.

She supposed she should be grateful that she didn't have to deal with a furious Asuka and an infatuated Shinji at once, but she couldn't help but feel that she was merely waiting for the other shoe to drop…

The Ops Director's musings were interrupted as Ritsuko began to speak to the Children, lecturing them like a professor.

"As I'm all of you know only too well, one of the greatest problems with the Evangelions is the very limited battery life," she said. "Once the umbilical cable is cut, each EVA has at most a painfully short five minute window in which to get another cord or finish its mission. Not the best of circumstances."

Asuka rolled her eyes skyward at this, and though Misato didn't give any sign of it, she couldn't help but agree with the sentiment. The pilots already knew all this, even by Ritsuko's admission, so why bother telling it to them?

"Most of the possible solutions were always deemed to carry unacceptable risks—such as the installation of a nuclear reactor," Ritsuko continued. "The S2 engine seemed to be the only viable answer, but while the American NERV branches believe they're close to figuring out how to create one, we have something that will solve the problem right now."

All three of the pilots perked up with interest at that, even Rei. It was no surprise, really, considering how great a hindrance that the short lives of the Evangelions' internal batteries were even at the best of times.

"Pilots," Ritsuko said as they approached a heavy door, "I give you the new K-Reactors."

The blonde swiped her access card through a reader, and the door hissed open, revealing the massive chamber where Tech Div One kept the Evangelions when they worked on them. At the moment, only Unit Two was present. The massive power socket in the back of the crimson war machine's armor had been entirely removed, and the staff was in the process of replacing it with an entirely new piece of hardware.

One of the components was apparently a very large, softly glowing green rock.

Asuka took a step back at the sight of it. "What the hell is that thing?" she demanded.

"It's a reactor using a new fuel source called Mineral-K," Ritsuko answered, frowning slightly at Asuka's emphatic reaction.

"Mineral-K?" Shinji asked. "I've never heard of it before."

"Its origins aren't of this world," Ritsuko explained. "The stuff was brought to Earth by a meteor. Unfortunately, this means we have a very limited amount of it to work with, so only three Evangelions can be equipped with a K-Reactor."

"So you want to trust the mystery space rock? To put it in _my_ Evangelion?" Asuka demanded angrily. "We're probably all getting cancer right now."

"Extensive tests have been done on the Mineral-K," Ritsuko retorted. "While it does emit an unusual form of radiation, we've found that it's quite harmless to humans under most circumstances. The MAGI calculate that it would take constant exposure over a period of years to cause any harm to a person."

"These are the supercomputers that fail to analyze any of the Angels at all until after we've killed them, right?" the Second Child asked bitingly.

"Asuka, I thought you'd be pleased," Misato commented. "I know how much you've always hated needing that power cable."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean I'm willing to grow a second head just so Unit Two doesn't need it anymore," Asuka retorted. "I want that thing out of my EVA." She demanded.

"Its installation was ordered by the Commander. If you want it removed, you'll have to take it up with him," Ritsuko practically growled. This was clearly not the way she'd expected her little presentation to go.

Asuka scowled, knowing how unlikely it was that Gendo Ikari would change his mind on the matter. "Those things had better be sealed in lead," she grumbled.

"Of course," Ritsuko said. "That's just a sensible precaution, though really it's more to protect the Evangelions than the pilots, and not even all that necessary for that."

"Asuka, are you all right?" Shinji asked. "You look a little pale."

Actually, the redhead looked more than a little bit pale in Misato's estimation; her skin had gone nearly as white as Rei's, and she was sweating noticeably.

"I'm fine!" the Second Child insisted nevertheless. "Can we just get out of here now?"

"Fine. There's nothing else to show you," Ritsuko said.

Without another word, Asuka spun on her heel and made a quick departure from the room, with the Ops Director and the other two pilots trailing.

Misato didn't fail to notice how much Asuka's condition seemed to improve as they put distance between themselves and the K-Reactors.

"I hope the Yankees figure out how to make a working S2 engine yesterday," Asuka grumbled to no one in particular.

* * *

The desert was an inferno.

The Nevada desert had always been hot, of course, but it had grown even more scorching since the Second Impact had altered the world's climate. Many of the species that had once managed to eke out an existence in the area had been driven to extinction by the even greater temperatures and increased paucity of water. As a result, the dessert was quieter than it had been; for the most part, only the occasional hot, dry wind created any sound.

Well, the occasional wind and the rather sizable NERV base which was smack dab in the middle of the arid, dusty nowhere.

That day, the American NERV base, which was also known as the Second Branch, was bustling with activity. The reason for all of it was simple.

After months of work studying the S2 organ that NERV Central had retrieved from the Fourth Angel, and even more months of work to get it installed into Unit Four, the time had finally come to activate the damn thing and see if it worked.

If the test was successful, it would mark a major milestone in the understanding of Angelic biology, as well as open up scores of opportunities for new tactics for fighting the war. If the Evangelions no longer needed power cords in order to be able to function for more than five minutes at a time, it would allow NERV to completely rewrite their playbook for the better.

So, with all these thoughts in his mind, along with visions of personal glory, floating in his head, the Commander of the Second Branch ordered one of his underlings to flip the switch.

Exactly 1.278 seconds later, the world of every soldier, scientist, and salary man in the base turned _red_.

* * *

"My god," Misato breathed several hours later as she looked up a screen displaying satellite footage of the Second Branch's untimely end.

Having served in the UN Army before transferring to NERV, the Ops Director was no stranger to violence and carnage. Having served and seen combat in some of the most dangerous parts of the post-Second Impact world, she thought that she had seen war at its worst.

Yet the way that the base in the desert just ceased to exist, just became _gone_…that sent an undeniable chill down her spine.

"This was no act of god," Ritsuko said grimly. "As near as we can figure, when they attempted to activate the S2 engine, it generated a Dirac Sea which existed for a few fractions of a second before collapsing. Unfortunately, that was more than enough time for it to swallow up the entire base."

"We really are meddling with things we don't understand, aren't we?" Maya asked softly from her place at a nearby terminal. "We're like children playing with matches."

The blond scientist ignored the remark. "Have they taken soil samples from ground zero yet?" she asked.

"Yes, sempai," the brunette answered. "Radiation tests came up negative, so they're shipping them here for further testing. They should arrive by the end of the week at the latest. The Americans are gathering any other data they can, but there isn't much there, from what I gather."

Ritsuko nodded. "Well they have more than we do, at least for now," she said. "It's not like we can hope to learn much more from a few seconds of video tape."

"Would you like me to return to my station on the command center, ma'am?" Maya asked.

Ritsuko nodded, and the brunette scurried out of the small room, obviously glad to be away from the looping footage of the Second Branch's demise.

The blond scientist apparently had similar desires. "I need some air," she told Misato. "Walk with me?"

"Sure," the Ops Director nodded.

In most normal workplaces, the two of them would have actually gone outside for a breath of fresh air. However, NERV headquarters was so massive that exiting the pyramid and then getting back to where they did most of their work would've taken them quite a while, so they had to settle for finding a larger chamber that actually had windows.

"So, are the rumors about the US actually true?" Misato asked after they'd walked for a few moments in silence, musing grimly that this was not what she'd expected to be talking to her friend about as soon as she got a moment alone with her.

_Well, it's not as if Rits would have any useful advice on the whole Shinji situation, anyway. She said so herself,_ Misato thought grumpily.

"They're not pulling out of NERV, if that's what you mean," Ritsuko said.

"Of course they won't do _that_," Misato scoffed. "They know they'd be dead if they did and an Angel attacked them. What I heard was that they wanted Unit Three off their soil yesterday."

"That's true," Ritsuko said. "It's being shipped here as soon as possible."

"It figures," Misato growled, crossing her arms. "They demanded to have the right to construct Units Three and Four, but now that something's gone wrong, they want us to deal with it."

"Well, they did just lose an entire base to a freak occurrence," Ritsuko said. "I can hardly blame them for being shaken."

"I guess," Misato said reluctantly. "So, if we're getting a new EVA, does that mean…?"

"Yes," Ritsuko sighed. "The Marduke Institute will soon select the Fourth Child."

* * *

The freeway which linked Tokyo-2 and Tokyo-3 was one of the busiest in all of Nippon. Given Tokyo-3's unique situation, there was plenty of work there for anyone who wanted it, but no one really wished to live in the place. As a result, people commuted, so traffic on the roadway connecting the two cities tended to vary from fairly heavy to jam packed.

This made it an especially bad location for a high speed police chase, but apparently no one had ever told the car thief Supergirl was pursuing that.

_Man, this guy's really just playing it by ear. He has no plan at all except to run,_ she thought as she flew high above the roadway, watching as the European muscle car blazed down the highway, weaving recklessly through traffic and nearly causing accidents left and right.

The Girl of Steel didn't think she even needed her super senses to hear the screech of tires as other vehicles braked and maneuvered to avoid the car thief.

Of course, numerous police cruisers were in pursuit of Mr. Grand Theft Auto, but the guy's newly acquired car had far more horses beneath the hood than anyone should actually ever use; between that and his crazy driving, he was slowly but surely putting distance between himself and his pursuers.

Clearly, it was time for her to make her move.

Making sure to keep pace with the speeding car, Supergirl began to descend toward the street, quickly assessing the best way to go about remedying the situation. She would have _loved_ to land on the hood of the guy's car and scare the hell out of him, but it didn't take a whole lot of thought to realize that wasn't a good idea at all.

At the speed the guy was moving, a single mistake could easily turn his crazed flight into a multi-car pileup. Much as she disliked it, Supergirl would have to forgo the theatrics here.

With one explosive burst of speed, she got directly beneath the speeding car without the driver ever having a chance to see her, finding that there was _just _enough room between the undercarriage and the street for her. Raising her hands, she took a firm hold of the vehicle, then pushed.

To the other drivers on the freeway, the stolen car briefly looked as though it was taking off like a plane, until it rose up high enough that the superwoman beneath was plainly visible.

The wheels spun wildly, no longer having to push against the road, as Supergirl lifted it higher and higher into the air, removing it from the flow of traffic without causing a catastrophe. She moved over to the side of the road, landing but keeping the vehicle held above her head.

The wheels didn't stop moving for a second.

"Just to let you know, you _will_ run out of gas before my arms get tired," she called up to him, deliberately using the sweetest tone she could muster.

"Screw you!" the driver shouted.

The wheels finally started slowing down as the car thief took his foot off the accelerator so he could lean out the window and draw a pistol.

Of course, with her directly below his vehicle, it was almost impossible for him to actually line up a shot. He ended up with more than half his body dangling out of the car, and even then it was only barely possible for him to hit her.

Not that she gave him the chance; it was a lot easier for her to hit the weapon with a blast of her heat vision, and she was tired of seeing the shocked expressions on idiots' faces as they realized she really _was_ bulletproof.

"Ah!" the guy cried out in surprise and went falling out of the car window, landing in a heap next to Supergirl.

"There, now wouldn't it have been easier to just give up?" she asked as she set the car down.

The man didn't answer, instead getting to his feet and making a run for it. The Girl of Steel had a grip on the back of his shirt in a heartbeat, pressing him against the side of the car.

"You're really not very bright, are you?" she asked. "Bonus points for tenacity, though."

The man growled but didn't dare to talk back to her.

A moment later, the police cars pulled up, and the officers got out and cuffed the car thief.

"Thanks for the help, Supergirl," one of them said. "This guy probably would've killed someone if you hadn't shown up."

"Any time," she replied, before taking off into the air.

The sunny smile she'd donned for the cops almost immediately gave way to a pensive expression as she made her way back to Tokyo-3. It had felt good to save the day, like always, but it didn't do much about the thoughts that had been nagging at her ever since the debacle that was the battle against the Twelfth Angel.

It had shocked her to discover there was a part of herself, no matter how tiny, that actually desired to stop piloting EVA. In its own way, the knowledge was as shocking as her discovery of her powers, or the story of her biological father's origins. She had practically built her whole life around Evangelion; she wasn't supposed to want out so she could fly around in a cape more often.

Ever since then, she'd been extremely conscious of the amount of time she _didn't_ spend being Supergirl because of NERV, and the amount of people she helped had started to feel strangely inadequate. She had stepped up her activities a bit, donning the costume whenever she could find the time, but that didn't dispel the feeling that she could and should be doing more.

Much as she hated to admit it, even to herself, she even felt that she should've saved the Second Branch in the US somehow. The idea was absurd, but part of her couldn't quite let go of the notion that because she was Supergirl, she should've been able to stop the disaster from happening.

_Why do things always have to be so damn confusing?_ She wondered irritably.

* * *

Ritsuko had always hated Terminal Dogma.

Back when Gendo had first given her access to the place, she'd tried to tell herself that it wasn't _so_ bad, and that she would no doubt become used to it eventually. These days, she had stopped lying to herself—at least about that issue—and just admitted to herself that the secure sub-basement to NERV was creepy as all hell.

Yet this was where Gendo Ikari preferred to meet, probably because he felt safest in Terminal Dogma, where even the eyes of SEELE could not see.

"Dr. Akagi," was Gendo's curt greeting.

The bottle blonde resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Here she was, alone in the dark with her lover, and the man couldn't even call her by her given name. She realized that Gendo detested mixing business with pleasure, but that was a little much.

_Not that he's so damn affectionate when we're off duty,_ she thought, before ruthlessly suppressing all her silly, illogical emotions.

"Commander," she said.

"I need a status update on the progress of the Dummy System," he said.

Ritsuko nodded, having been fully aware that this was coming. With this unexpected event leaving both SEELE and the States twitchy, the Commander would need every ace up his sleeve that he could possibly get.

"Of course, sir," she said. "Follow me, please."

She led Gendo to a very large, very dark room and flipped a heavy switch with a grunt of effort. Lights mounted on the high ceiling began to come on, one row at a time, but even these didn't manage to completely dispel the darkness. The room still seemed quite dim.

The lights did, however, illuminate a large metal cylinder which was suspended above the floor by a pair of huge clamps. The thing looked exactly like the standard entry plug from the outside, except that it had been painted entirely red.

"This is the Dummy Plug prototype, Commander," Ritsuko said, gesturing up at it. "Rei's personal pilot data has been downloaded into it, but we can't truly digitize a human mind. In the end, this is nothing but a pale duplication that crudely emulates the pilot's thinking process. It's still only a machine."

"It transmits a signal to EVA. If the Evangelion believes that it's a real pilot and synchs with it, then that's enough," Gendo said simply. "Load the data into Units One and Two."

"But, sir, we still haven't worked all the bugs out," Ritsuko protested.

"Just do it," Gendo said, and she could hear the annoyance in his tone. "It's sufficient."

"Yes, sir," Ritsuko agreed reluctantly.

Gendo nodded. "I've delegated the task of transporting Unit Three to the UN. They, in turn, will likely delegate the matter to the US," he said. "You will take care of it."

"Of course," Ritsuko said. "We'll perform the modifications and activation in Matsushiro."

"And the test pilot?" Gendo asked.

"Use of the Dummy System is not recommended," Ritsuko warned at once. "One of our pilot candidates…"

"Will be chosen as the Fourth," Gendo said. "Very well. See to it, Dr. Akagi."

"Yes, sir," Ritsuko replied. "There's one candidate whose core can be prepared immediately."

"Good," was Gendo's only response.

* * *

Toji found he really couldn't focus on the teacher's lecture the next morning.

Not that the jock ever really paid _that_ much attention to the old man's endless Second Impact rant. No one really did, except maybe the class rep. However, the teacher would sometimes pick a student at random and ask a question about what he'd just been saying, so it was best to keep one ear open.

That day, however, Toji just couldn't do it. The doctors had revised his sister's prognosis downwards, saying that unless she could get better care, and soon, it was unlikely that she would ever make a full recovery, that she would ever even walk again. Unfortunately, getting Mariko the kind of treatment she needed was well beyond the means of the Suzuhara family.

Toji had been devising and rejecting crazy get rich quick schemes ever since then, trying desperately to come up with some way to save his sister's legs. Much as he had wanted to blame the fate that had befallen Mariko on Shinji the first time he'd met the EVA pilot, Toji had always known he was the one responsible for what had happened to her. He was the one who hadn't kept a close enough eye on her when they'd been in the shelter that terrible night, allowing her to slip out and get hurt.

It was his fault, and so far as he was concerned, that made it his responsibility to fix it. Yet he was completely incapable of actually doing anything really helpful, let alone paying the bills for the treatment Mariko needed all by himself. The whole situation made him feel more powerless than he ever had before in his entire life.

Just as he thought he was about to explode in his seat from his anger and feelings of impotence, the school's PA system crackled to life.

"Toji Suzuhara, please report to the principal's office immediately. Toji Suzuhara, please report to the principal's office."

Blinking and wondering what he'd done, the jock stood. "May I go?" he asked the teacher.

"Yes, yes," the man answered, barely bothering to wave him off before resuming his lecture.

_Great, so in addition to all the other crap, I'm going to get suspended or something, probably for something I didn't even do,_ he thought as he walked to the principal's office. _Dad's going to kill me. I just know it._

"Toji Suzuhara here," he announced himself as he reached the door to the principal's office.

"Enter."

He opened the door and walked in, then stopped at what he saw. Tokyo-3 Municipal Junior High School's perpetually gruff principal was sitting behind his big oak desk, which of course was completely normal. However, a blond woman in a lab coat was sitting in the guest chair next to the desk.

"Good morning, Suzuhara-kun," she greeted him politely.

"Uh, hi," he replied.

She seemed vaguely familiar to him, but he couldn't quite place where he might've met her before. Which was pretty strange; though definitely not a mega-babe like Misato, she was pretty attractive, and he usually remembered good-looking older women when he met them.

She smiled, obviously seeing the confusion on his face. "My name is Dr. Ritsuko Akagi, and I work for NERV," she said. "I believe we met once during a party at Misato's apartment."

"Oh!" Toji exclaimed as the memory clicked for him. No wonder he didn't remember this woman better; he'd probably been occupied that whole evening with…observing Misato. "So, what can I do for you, Doc?"

"Well, Suzuhara-kun, I have a proposition for you," she said. "If you accept, I can see to it that your sister receives the best possible treatment, all on NERV's dime."

Toji did his best not to show what those words did to him, but there was no stopping his palms from sweating at least.

"I'm listening," he said, doing his best to ignore the terribly sad look in her green eyes.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** The original version of this chapter's first scene had Misato revealing to Shinji that she thought her was enamored with her, rather than Asuka, and Shinji subsequently deciding that Misato's _not_ a great person to ask for romantic advice after all. However, it seemed that a lot of people expected more from that particular subplot, so I figured I would play it to the hilt and keep the misunderstanding going for at least a bit longer.

Anyway, thanks as always to my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta reader as well.

* * *

Omake

The Best Misunderstanding

"I understand what you're saying, Misato, and you're probably right, but I can't just give up," he said. "I can't."

"Now, Shinji…"

"I never felt like this before, Misato. Not ever," he continued, only dimly aware that his grip on her hand was tightening. "Who knows if I ever will again?"

"Oh, Shinji, you're very young still," she rushed to assure him. "There will be others for you."

"Maybe, maybe not," he said, his dark blue eyes meeting her brown ones. "But I still think I'll regret it forever if I don't at least try. If I do, and I get shot down, it'll hurt, a lot, but at least I won't always be wondering what might've been. Does that make any sense?"

"Oh, well, I guess," she stammered, suddenly looking very much like a deer caught in the headlights. "But…I, well…"

"Yes?"

"Oh, I can't hold back any longer!" Misato exclaimed. "Your untainted passion for me has ignited a fire in my soul! Take me now, my prince!"

"Wha…wait a second!" Shinji exclaimed, his face reddening as his guardian practically tackled him.

"No more waiting!" Misato insisted. "Too much of life is wasted on hesitation!"

"But you don't understand…!" Shinji tried to protest.

Misato ignored him, however, trying to kiss him. Shinji did his best to squirm away, but he couldn't avoid her for much longer.

"Hey!" a new voice barked.

Shinji and Misato turned to see Asuka in the doorway, her hands on her hips and scowl on her face. The Third Child felt his stomach plunge into his shoes, knowing any chance he might've had with the redhead had just been utterly destroyed.

"Get off my man, you harlot!" Asuka barked.

Wait.

"Your man? Since when?" Misato demanded, ignoring the stars and rainbows suddenly floating around Shinji. "I saw him first!"

"Oh, sorry, let me put that another way," Asuka said, rolling up her sleeves. Marching up to Misato, she grabbed hold of her guardian and easily lifted the older woman above her head. "_Get off my man, you harlot!_"

"Okay, okay!" Misato exclaimed, terrified. "How about we share him?"

"And why should I agree to that?" Asuka demanded.

"Because I can _teach_ you things," Misato said suggestively. "I can teach you both _things_."

Asuka looked intrigued by the idea.

"Well, I guess we could try it," she allowed.

"Sugoi!" their guardian exclaimed.

"But I get to kiss him first," Asuka insisted as she set Misato down. "I would've already if not for Kaji and your drunk ass interrupting us the other night."

"Of course, go ahead," Misato said, clearly not about to pick a fight with the tremendously strong redhead.

Smiling, Asuka moved toward Shinji, her lips pursed. The Third Child eagerly moved forward to meet her, his heart hammering. Then—

"WARK!"

Shinji jolted awake, finding himself sitting in his bed. Dazed, he cast his gaze around the room, soon finding Pen-Pen at the foot of his bed.

Fire blazed in the Third Child's eyes. "You interrupted the best dream I have ever had, right before it got to the good part," he said. "I let it go when you scared the crap out of me on my first night here, but for this, you must die."

Pen-Pen apparently comprehended his words, because the penguin immediately went fleeing from the room at top speed. Shinji leaped out of bed, ready to pursue, then hesitated for a moment.

_I wonder why Asuka was super strong in my dream,_ he thought.

Then he shrugged. It was a dream; it didn't have to make sense. In any case, he needed to find the main ingredient for a nice dish of roast penguin.

"Pen-Pen, come back here, you!" he shouted.


	15. Chapter 14

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC comics or anything associated with it and am making no profit off this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Fourteen:** Promises to Keep

"Man, what is with you lately?" Kensuke asked. "You've been out of it for days."

"I have not," the jock said half-heartedly.

It was gym class, and the two of them were seated on the sidelines of the basketball court. Shinji was playing at the moment, which finally gave the otaku a second alone with Toji to interrogate him.

"Uh-huh, you've just been walking around in a daze for all this time for no reason," Kensuke said, rolling his eyes.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Toji insisted, "I haven't been acting weird at all lately."

"Dude, the girls are all in their bathing suits right now," Kensuke said flatly, gesturing toward the pool with his head, "and you haven't turned to look in their direction once."

"Okay, fine," Toji said, scowling. "You're a real pain in the ass sometimes, you know that?"

"Yup," Kensuke answered candidly. "Now quit trying to dodge the question and tell me what's wrong."

Toji sighed, placing his hands on his knees and turned his gaze down to the ground. "NERV is sending a new EVA over soon," he said. "They picked me to pilot Unit Four."

_"YOU'RE GOING TO BE AN EVA PILOT?!"_

The result of the otuku's shout instantaneous. The basketball game going on nearby immediately came to a halt, as the players abandoned it in favor of clustering around the newly minted Fourth Child. The girls, too, had apparently heard him, and they quickly got out of the pool to gawk up at him, as though they expected that becoming an Evangelion pilot had changed his appearance somehow.

Of course, the phys ed teachers (and the class rep) soon started barking at people to get back to what they were supposed to be doing, but it seemed like several minutes passed before anyone paid them any attention.

In the meantime, the jock found himself mobbed by people rapid firing questions at him that ranged from the simple ("When were you picked?") to the utterly absurd ("Will your EVA be able to transform?"). He couldn't have focused on any one inquiry long enough to answer it even if he'd wanted to.

Normally, Toji might've enjoyed all the attention, especially from the girls, but he didn't want it for being an Evangelion pilot. Not when the idea of actually piloting one of those behemoths just made him vaguely queasy. So instead he just stared at all the people clustered around him, feeling overwhelmed and almost panicky.

Dimly, it occurred to him that this might be how Shinji had felt, when he'd inadvertently revealed his own pilot status to the entire class.

"All right, that's enough!" the phys ed teacher finally managed to bellow loudly enough to get everyone's attention, and the crowd reluctantly returned to the court. "Aida, get back in the game!" the teacher scowled, clearly annoyed at the otaku for causing the disruption.

With a resigned sigh, Kensuke walked onto the court, and Toji was left alone on the sidelines.

However, he wasn't alone for long. Shinji rotated out of the game after a few minutes, and quickly joined the jock by the chain link fence.

"Is it true?" the Third Child asked him quietly, after several seconds of awkward silence.

"Yeah," Toji replied. "Remember when I was called to the principal's office the other day? That's what it was about."

"Don't do it," Shinji blurted out. "It…it hurts. You can die."

"I know," Toji replied, remembering all too well the harrowing experience of riding in the entry plug while Shinji killed the Fourth Angel, and the way the pilot had broken down immediately afterwards. "But I already agreed to do it. NERV is gonna pay for my sister's medical treatments."

Shinji winced. "God, Toji, I'm so sorry…" he started to stammer.

"No, it's okay. It's not your fault she got hurt. It was mine," the jock cut him off. "So I have to fix it. It's okay, Shin-man, really."

"Yeah," Shinji said, though he obviously didn't believe it.

"Besides, I'll be okay. I have you to watch my back while I get the hang of it," Toji said with forced levity. "Don't I?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, of course!" Shinji said.

"Of course, once I hit my stride, we'll have this whole Angel War thing over with in a week or two, and then it'll be time to just collect the kudos," Toji continued. "Don't worry, Shinji, I'll show you how to use your fame to pick up girls."

Despite himself, Shinji snickered. "Thanks," he said sarcastically. "I was afraid that you'd keep them all for your own harem."

"What can I say?" the jock shrugged. "I'm a generous guy."

* * *

Generally speaking, Kaji didn't mind being with Misato when she was drunk. This was definitely a good thing so far their relationship went, because Misato liked to drink. She didn't get intoxicated as often as she had back in college, difficult though that might've been to believe for the pair of teenagers currently sharing an apartment with her, but she definitely still enjoyed her liquor.

Of course, there was a _reason_ why he usually didn't mind being in her company when she was inebriated, and that reason was that she tended to be a _happy_ drunk.

Also, sometimes she was an amorous drunk, which he really liked.

Other times, though…

"I just don't know what to do," Misato practically sobbed before draining another cup of sake.

"You might want to stop drinking for the moment," Kaji advised, making a half-hearted attempt at taking the bottle away before the Ops Director could pour herself another serving.

He was unsurprised when she easily slapped his hand out of the way and grabbed the white bottle; he knew from experience that Misato needed to be _really_ hammered before her reflexes and hand-eye coordination started to deteriorate.

Kaji supposed he should be thankful that they'd gotten a booth instead of opting to sit at the bar. At least this way she could make a scene in relative privacy.

Misato downed another cup, then turned her attention back to him, her eyes decidedly liquid. "He's in love with me, Kaji," she said. "I never expected this."

Despite himself, the long-haired man couldn't help but smirk a bit at that. "Really?"

"Oh, I always knew he was _attracted_ to me," Misato said with enough volume that a few of the establishment's other patrons turned to look in her direction. She didn't notice, and she wouldn't have cared even she had. "And, really, who could blame him?" she added, gesturing to herself.

Kaji's smirk widened. "Certainly not me."

"I liked to tease him and wind him up. It was fun. He'd always go ballistic," the purple-haired woman continued in a mournful tone. "I wouldn't have been surprised if he developed a little crush, but this…this is way beyond that."

"You…do realize it can't go anywhere, right?" he asked carefully.

Though he was not unfamiliar with Sad Drunk Misato, whenever Kaji had encountered her in the past, she had talked mostly about her father. He'd learned, eventually, what to say and what not to say when that topic came up while she was in such a state.

This, on the other hand, was uncharted territory, and he was trying to step lightly.

"Of course I know that!" she snapped. "I tried to let him down easy, I really did. But the look in his eyes when told he me he couldn't give up and that he'd regret it forever if he didn't try…I've never seen him so determined. Ever. I couldn't hurt him like that. I just couldn't."

"Have you considered the possibility that maybe it's not you he's pining for?" Kaji asked.

He had noted the awkward tension that had existed between Shinji and Asuka, when he'd brought Misato back on the night they'd gotten back together. Kaji couldn't be sure, but he suspected that he'd accidentally interrupted some kind of romantic moment between the two.

"Of course I'm sure it's me!" Misato snapped.

But if there was anything going on between those two kids, their guardian didn't see it, apparently.

"Hmm…maybe I could talk to Shinji?" Kaji suggested. "You know, man-to-man?"

"That might work normally…" Misato downed another cup of sake, "…but _you're_ the one he's jealous and angry at. He won't listen to you about this."

"I see," Kaji said, finally concluding that the purple-haired woman wanted to drink and complain, not figure out how to solve the problem, which she clearly thought was an impossible task. "You do know that the longer you wait to tell him, the worse it'll be, right?"

Misato responded to that by silently gulping down another shot.

Suppressing a sigh, Kaji turned his gaze toward the bar's large front window, which allowed for a view of the busy street outside. As it was only early evening, numerous people were still bustling around out there.

Suddenly, something blue and red whizzed by, flying well over the heads of everyone walking on the sidewalk. It had moved so quickly that it was impossible to say for sure if the speeding object had even been human, but in Tokyo-3, it was a pretty safe bet.

"Well, what do you know?" Kaji mused aloud. "I think that was Supergirl."

"I wish I was Supergirl," Misato grumbled, and he noted that she was starting to slur a bit. "I'll bet she doesn't even get anywhere _near_ the kind of emotional mess I'm stuck with right now."

* * *

Supergirl flew above the streets of Tokyo-3, making sure to keep her speed low enough to prevent doing damage or creating dangerous wind gusts. Of course, that also gave people ample opportunity to see her as she went by.

The result was a lot of people looking up and pointing as she flew, as well as many of them cheering and calling up to her, and the Girl of Steel waved back at times, giving her admirers hundred watt smiles which made several of the males visibly swoon.

There was never any hint of the emotions churning just beneath the surface of those smiles.

Much as she still loved the attention she got from people when she put on her blue and red costume, she found that she could barely get her mind off her problems these days. In addition to the conundrum she was facing regarding the question of who and what she wanted to be, she now had to worry about the massive chunk of kryptonite that was going to be powering her precious Unit Two.

_I hate this,_ she thought, keeping the jaunty grin on her face with considerable effort.

All this anxiety and all this indecisive deliberation simply weren't her; it wasn't how the_ Great_ _Asuka Langley Soryu _lived her life. By this point, she just wanted to pick a path and walk it, just so she could stop wondering what she should do. As for Unit Two's new power source, she was half tempted to make herself a lead suit or something so she could rip the chunk of alien crystal right out her EVA and toss it into the sun.

_Because a seemingly random assault on NERV wouldn't do __**anything**__ to Supergirl's reputation,_ she thought with a small smirk.

She was just thinking about heading back home when her superhumanly keen ears picked a single sound out of the ocean of noise that the city generated.

The sound of a gun shot.

Instantly, her head snapped toward the direction of the bang. Almost without thinking about it, she focused her extraordinary eyes, automatically using the X-ray vision that had so flummoxed her when she'd first discovered it. The great towers of steel and glass that made up the heart of Tokyo-3 became transparent to her, and she quickly located the source of the gunfire, her eyes zooming in on the scene.

A man in a black ski mask was robbing a small convenience store in the bad part of the city. The hapless man behind the counter was cringing, and a thin stream of smoke was rising from the crook's pistol. However, no one was hurt, so it seemed likely that the guy had just fired a warning shot into the ceiling or something.

It was a small crime, in the grand scheme of things. If it was allowed to unfold, it would probably make page 11 or so of the city's local newspaper, if it was even mentioned at all. The armed robber stood to make, at most, a few tens of thousands of yen.

Supergirl didn't hesitate to change her course in order to respond. The Girl of Steel flew straight upwards, until she was above even the tallest building. Then she put on a burst of speed as she headed for her destination, leaving a great gust of wind in her wake.

Her mind was completely focused on the task ahead of her, simple though it might've been. For a while, Supergirl forgot all about the worries she was nursing and felt more like Asuka Langley Soryu than she had in what seemed like a long time.

* * *

Nobu was really glad he'd worn a mask to this robbery.

Not so much because of the security camera hanging from the ceiling, which he was pretty sure was broken, but because it concealed the fact that he felt almost as nervous as the poor guy behind the counter.

A few years ago, he never would've _imagined_ that he'd be doing something like this. He'd been the damned teacher's pet when he'd been a schoolboy, for god's sake. But desperate circumstances called for desperate measures, and his circumstances were desperate indeed.

"Okay," he said, pointing his gun at the store clerk, and somehow keeping his voice level, "just hand over all the money, and nobody needs to get hurt." He passed the middle-aged man behind the counter a small brown sack with his free hand.

"This is a really dumb thing to be doing, you know," a distinctly feminine voice spoke.

Nobu jumped, he couldn't help it. It was all he could to stifle a yelp of surprise. Eventually regaining his composure, he quickly turned to spot someone standing nearby who he was _sure_ hadn't been there a moment ago.

Whoever it was, she was holding a newspaper in front of herself, so all he could see of her was a short red shirt, and long, slim legs. For a second, Nobu could only blink stupidly at this girl, who was apparently so unperturbed at finding herself at the scene of an armed robbery in progress that she hadn't bothered to look away from the crossword puzzle.

"Whoever you are, get out of here now," Nobu commanded, doing his best to sound fearsome.

"No, I don't think I will," she responded in a casual tone.

Before he could reply to that, the girl folded up her newspaper and returned it to the stack where she'd apparently gotten it from, at last revealing her upper half to him.

Seeing that famous red "S", Nobu wondered what he'd ever done to deserve such bad luck. He hadn't even finished committing his first crime, after all, and by the looks of things, he wouldn't.

"All right—" Supergirl began, taking a step toward him.

Nobu panicked, and his body seemed to act without any input from his mind. He raised his gun and fired.

The pistol's report was absolutely deafening inside the small store, and Nobu swore that the recoil would probably tear off his damn arm if he fired the weapon again.

However, for all the pistol's sound and fury, the shot had no visible effect at all. In fact, the bullet seemed to have completely disappeared, and Supergirl certainly hadn't collapsed to the floor in agony.

For a moment, none of the three people inside the small store spoke or even moved, as though that bizarre instant had been completely frozen in time. Then…

"Pah."

The masked superwoman spat out something, and it hit the floor with a metallic tinkling. Nobu stared at it in confusion for several seconds, clueless as to what the odd little lump of metal might be. Then his eyes widened as realization hit.

It was the bullet, or the remains of the bullet, anyway. It was now badly misshapen, and, he noticed with a mixture of fascination and horror, it had a _bite mark_ in it, the way a piece of used chewing gum which had been abandoned on the street might.

He had managed to fire a bullet right into Supergirl's mouth, and she had spit it out like it was nothing.

"Okay," he said, squatting down and carefully placing his gun on the floor, "I give up."

She blinked, looking surprised. Smiling, she turned to the store clerk. "Would you call the police?" she asked politely.

The man quickly went to do just that.

Supergirl approached Nobu, picking up the gun from the floor. "You know," she began, as she absently crumpled the weapon into a ball as easily as he could've done the same to the newspaper she'd been holding a minute ago, "you're the first person who surrendered to me so quickly."

"I am?" he asked, surprised. Did regular people actually try to fight the Girl of Steel?

"Oh, yeah," she replied. "Usually when the bullets don't work, most crooks try pistol whipping me, believe it or not. You're much smarter than they are, obviously."

"For whatever that's worth," Nobu groaned miserably.

The clerk returned before Supergirl could say anything. "I called the police. They're on their way here to pick him up."

"Thanks," the superwoman said.

"Hey," Nobu said diffidently, turning to face the clerk, who scowled at him. "I know it probably doesn't mean much, especially now, but I am sorry about this."

The man behind the counter simply scowled, then turned away from him, concentrating on some menial task or another.

"Why'd you do this, anyway?" Supergirl asked him.

Nobu sighed heavily. "My dad's sick, and I haven't been able to find a job in forever. Mom's been working double shifts all the time, but she's getting old. I just wanted to help, you know? Of course, in hindsight, this wasn't very helpful to anyone." He added glumly.

Supergirl nodded. "That's rough," she said, and he was amazed at the display of sympathy, considering the circumstances. "Look, I don't have any job to offer you, and I don't expect to when you get out, either. But I deal with a lot of petty criminals and losers, and you're not like them."

"I…thanks," Nobu said quietly. Glancing through the storefront window, he noticed red and blue flashing lights outside. The police would be there soon.

Supergirl nodded. "Take your sentence like a man, then go back to searching for honest work," she advised him. "You're better than this."

A cop walked into the store before Nobu could reply, and after saying a few cursory words of thanks to Supergirl, he handcuffed Nobu and started to read him his rights. The Girl of Steel left the store, while the would-be robber docilely allowed himself to be led to a squad car, a single thought in his head.

_Never again._

* * *

After leaving the convenience store, Supergirl took off into the air again. She searched briefly for some other problem that might need her attention but didn't immediately spot anything, even with her superhuman senses. Crime in Tokyo-3 had dropped sharply, for some mysterious reason.

The Girl of Steel was about to expand her search when she happened to pass by a bank with a large clock out front, and her blue eyes widened when she saw the time.

"Mein Gott, I'm going to be late!" she exclaimed, changing course and flying as quickly she dared.

Stopping on the rooftop where she'd left the bag with her regular clothes, she quickly changed, becoming Asuka once more, and then rushed to the train station, hopping a ride downtown. She spent the entire time in the crowded car wishing that she could've just flown there, but she couldn't risk being seen soaring through the sky in her regular clothes.

Eventually, she arrived at the entrance to the mall, where she found a certain freckled-faced, pig-tailed girl waiting for her, looking impatient.

"Hi, Hikari," she greeted her friend, doing her best to sound breathless, like she'd been running. Which she had, but she could lap the city a dozen time without raising her heart rate very much, so she had to fake it. "Sorry I'm late. I lost track of time."

The class rep gave her an annoyed look for a moment, before sighing ruefully and smiling. "It's all right," she said, "I'm just glad you made it. It seems like we've barely spent any time together at all, lately."

"My fault," Asuka said as they entered the mall. "I've been busy. NERV stuff, mostly." She added, which was technically true, if not entirely honest.

Hikari chuckled. "I guess I can't be annoyed at you, then, since 'NERV stuff' involves saving the world," she observed as they entered the shopping mall.

"Exactly!" Asuka agreed cheerfully.

The two girls started to move from store to store, checking out the clothes and accessories on sale. The redhead didn't buy much, still feeling that Japanese fashion that year was dull and uninspired, but she made more purchases than Hikari, who seemed to be looking at all the merchandise on sale without actually seeing any of it.

It didn't take Asuka much longer to realize that Hikari wasn't saying much, either. In itself that wasn't very usual, as the Second Child usually dominated the conversations between the two of them. And just about every conversation she took part in, for that matter. However, the class rep usually wasn't _this_ quiet.

The redhead couldn't help but find her friend's pensive mood a little disturbing, so, in true Asuka fashion, she confronted the issue head-on when they stopped at the food court to get to something to eat.

"Okay, spill," she said as they sat down to bowls of ramen, "what's going on?"

"Hmm? Nothing's going on," Hikari insisted, but she didn't meet Asuka's eyes when she said it.

"Uh-huh, yeah right," the redhead said sarcastically.

"Really, there's nothing," the class rep repeated.

Asuka frowned, wondering why Hikari was refusing to open up to her. The two girls had become quite close in the fairly brief time since the Second Child had arrived in Japan, and the brunette had told the EVA pilot things she'd never told anyone else.

She had confessed to Asuka that there were times when she resented her two sisters, for needing her to be so responsible and play the role of matron to the Horaki family since their mother had died. She had confided in Asuka about how, just _once_, she'd like to do something absolutely outrageous and completely against the rules.

_So why's she claming up now?_ Asuka wondered. _I thought she'd tell me just about anything, unless…_

Unless it was something she thought Asuka would react badly to hearing about.

"Oh Gott," she groaned as it clicked. "You're worried about the Stooge because he's going to be a pilot now, aren't you?"

"Well, yes," Hikari admitted. "I mean, it's a dangerous job, fighting those giant monsters, after all."

Asuka pinched the bridge of her nose. "How many times have I told you that you deserve better than him?" she demanded. "Besides, the idiot's so damn shallow that he'd never a notice a girl unless she's got a chest out to there." She added, making a cupping motion with her hands and holding them a solid foot away from her own bust.

"That's not true," Hikari argued.

"Yeah, right," the redhead scowled. "I overheard him talking to Shinji earlier about using the fame from piloting to pick up and girls and making a harem. He's a pig."

"Oh, he was just joking around," Hikari said dismissively.

Sometimes it seemed to Asuka that she had been finding new limits to what she could actually do witj her awesome powers ever since they'd manifested, and this was definitely one of those times. She could shatter mountains, make things burn just by looking at them, and withstand even the most brutal of attacks, but she still couldn't convince her friend to stop pining for that idiot jock and go looking for a guy actually worthy of her.

"_Shinji_ was joking. Suzuhara was serious," she insisted.

Seeing a weakness in the redhead's offensive, Hikari didn't hesitate to pounce on it. Not that she had to do very much to capitalize on it, though. She just grinned knowingly at Asuka, and her friend reacted.

"Oh, don't start up that talk about me and Shinji again," Asuka said.

"Fine," Hikari said, though she didn't stop grinning, "but let's not have this argument again, all right? We could debate this 'til doomsday, and it won't change the fact that I like Toji." She blushed as she said the last few words.

"I guess the heart wants what it wants," Asuka sighed, finally relenting, at least for the moment. "Even if the brain could see it's a bad idea otherwise." She added under her breath, but not so softly that Hikari couldn't hear.

The class rep ignored the barb. "Anyway, to go back to the original point, yes, I'm worried about him," she confessed. "He hasn't been getting ready to do this his whole life like you and Ayanami. I mean, I know that Shinji didn't have any training, either, before he came to Tokyo-3, and that he's been okay so far, but he's…"

"The invincible Shinji," Asuka groaned. "Yeah, I know."

"Look, I know you don't like Toji," Hikari continued. "But it would really mean a lot to me if you'd look out for him."

Asuka sighed heavily as she looked at the pleading expression that the class rep—one of the few friends she'd ever had, and in fact the _best_ friend she'd ever had—was currently giving her.

"All right, I'll watch the Stooge's back when he sorties, for you," she gave in at last. "I swear, he doesn't deserve you. Not even close."

"Thank you, Asuka."

"You're welcome," the redhead said. "Now let's go check out that new store. I heard they have more Western fashions than the others around here."

* * *

As the day of Unit Three's arrival to Japan approached, an almost palpable cloud of gloom seemed to settle over NERV in general and the pilots in particular. Most, if not all of the personnel who mattered at the paramilitary organization prided themselves on bring fundamentally rational people who believed in the power of science. However, the untimely destruction of the new Evangelion's twin and the Second Branch along with it was a bad omen that none of them could quite dismiss.

The feelings of foreboding grew so stifling that when the eve of the Unit Three activation test came around, most of NERV was just relieved that it would be over soon, come what may.

With the critical moment approaching, Misato departed for an overnight stay at NERV's auxiliary base in Matsushiro, where the test would take place. Apparently, direct oversight from the Ops Director was necessary to make sure everything would be ready for the arrival of Unit Three the following day.

"Okay, that should be everything," Misato said with forced cheerfulness as she picked up her drab green duffel bag. It was an item from her time in the military, but it looked oddly out of place in the hands of woman wearing the black and bright red NERV uniform. "I should be home in time for dinner tomorrow. There's food in the fridge, the emergency number is 911, and blah blah blah."

Asuka couldn't help but smirk a little at that last part. "Not that I'm complaining, mind you, but why are you leaving the two of us alone for the night?" she asked.

"Because I trust you," Misato said formally.

Shinji and Asuka both lasted a whole three seconds before they started snickering. The purple-haired woman sighed in exasperation.

"Okay, but seriously, why?" Asuka pressed.

The redhead had privately been expecting Misato to announce that she'd found a babysitter for them ever since they'd learned she'd have to spend a night at Matsushiro. Of course, Asuka chafed at the idea of being babysat and was very glad she wasn't going to be subjected to that indignity.

That didn't mean she wasn't curious, however.

Misato shrugged. "You two have matured a lot, and it's not like I haven't had to leave you alone before. Besides," she added, her voice suddenly turning suggestive, "I know that if the two of you intend to do things with each other that you really shouldn't, I won't be able to stop you forever."

Shinji blushed furiously, while Asuka rolled her eyes disgustedly, and Misato laughed at the scene. In truth, she _had_ wanted to get someone to watch over her two charges while she away, but her options had been very limited. Practically all of the people she knew in Tokyo-3 also worked for NERV, and most of them were as tied up with the business of the upcoming activation test as she was. Kaji was the only one available, and between Shinji's grudge and Asuka's crush, it had just seemed like having him stay over to look after them was a recipe for disaster.

"Well, I'll see you tomorrow," their guardian said, eager to make her getaway. "We'll celebrate the successful activation of Unit Three then, I'm sure." She added with more confidence than she really felt.

With that, she departed, waving absently at the two of them as she walked away.

The two teens hesitated for a moment, oddly unsure what to do with Misato gone.

"So, what's for dinner?" Asuka broke the awkward pause.

Shinji smiled ruefully. "Not sure yet."

"Well, hop to it."

Shaking his head, he made his way to the kitchen to see what he had to work with, while Asuka meandered over to the living room, plopped down on the couch, and turned on the TV.

Quickly deciding on what to make, Shinji set to work. For several minutes, he was completely occupied with the task of making dinner, but once he got everything cooking, there was little to do but wait. Now idle, the Third Child found his attention drifting over the redhead.

A quiet sigh of longing escaped him. Even while vegging out in front of the television, the redhead was still beautiful and elegant.

Of course, it had occurred to him that this, the two of them alone in the apartment together, was as close to the perfect moment as fate was likely to offer him. However, the idea of asking her out on a date right then seemed completely impossible. With the pall that was practically blanketing NERV and all its personnel, it would feel like trying to pick up a girl at a funeral.

Besides, despite both their best efforts, he still had a higher sync score than she did, which the Third Child was quite sure couldn't help his chances.

Not for the first time, he wondered if doing this kind of thing was so difficult for everyone, and, if so, how it was that so many people managed to get together.

"Food's ready," he called once he had everything plated.

"Looks good," Asuka said as she came to the table and sat down.

The two of them made some meaningless small talk for a few minutes as they ate, with the Second Child doing far more to carry the conversation than the Third. In all honestly, he was only barely aware of what they were talking about.

Finally, he could take it no longer. "Asuka?" he spoke up as she finished some anecdote or another.

"Yes?"

"Do you think anything bad is going to happen tomorrow?" he asked.

"Nah," Asuka answered immediately. "What happened with Unit Four was tragic, no doubt about it, and it got everybody's hackles up. I get that, but there's no logical reason to believe that Unit Three's another disaster waiting to happen."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," he agreed, "but I can't help but feel this sense of foreboding…"  
"So, in other words, it's business as usual for you?" Asuka asked, quirking an eyebrow. "Honestly, Shinji, you worry about everything. You're going to gray before you're old enough to drive at this rate!"

"I do worry a lot," he admitted, "but I'm usually right to worry."

"Maybe so, but has any situation you've been in ever been better because you worried about what might go wrong beforehand?" she retorted.

"…I guess not," he conceded.

The Second Child just have him a very smug look in response to that, and Shinji visibly deflated.

"Look," she said, feeling pity for him, "if it makes you feel better, then I swear, as the Great Asuka Langley Soryu, best of the Evangelion pilots, that I won't let anything bad happen to your big dumb friend, okay?"

"Thanks, that actually does make me feel better." He said.

"You don't have to sound so surprised," she said, giving him an irritated look.

"Oh, right. Sorry," he said sheepishly.

After they finished dinner, the two cleaned up. Once that was done, Asuka headed for her room, shutting the door behind herself as she entered. Stretching widely, she headed over to her closet, retrieving the Supergirl costume from its hiding place. Before she could start to change, though, a large yawn abruptly escaped her.

_Gott, I'm actually tired,_ she thought with considerable surprise. _What is wrong me with me?_

Thinking a bit, she realized that she hadn't slept at all in over a week, having spent all the night hours of the past several days helping people as Supergirl.

She had wanted to spend more time being the Girl of Steel, but she hadn't intended to forego sleep entirely. It had just sort of happened.

_I guess even Supergirl needs to take a night off every now and then,_ she decided, even though it made her feel a bit guilty.

She was about to put the blue and red outfit back when she hesitated, thinking about the activation test the next day. Much as she hated to admit to any superstitious feelings, she definitely couldn't shake her own nagging fears that something nasty was going to happen with Unit Three. And she _was_ doubly committed to protecting that big dumb idiot now.

With a sigh and a shake of her head, she stuffed the costume into a red, water-proof duffel that she frequently took to headquarters with her. Normally she _never_ would have placed the proof that she was Supergirl in something she regularly took to NERV, but this way she could easily have her costume at hand all day if something actually did happen.

Just in case.

* * *

"Do I really need to wear this thing to pilot, Doc?" Toji Suzuhara asked as he looked down at his plugsuit, opening and closing his gloved hand repeatedly.

"Well, technically no," Ritsuko answered him, not looking away from her clipboard, "however, it does help your synch ratio, so NERV does require you to wear it. And anyway, the LCL we flood the plugs with will ruin normal clothing."

The day of the Unit Three activation test had come at last, and Toji had arrived at the Matsushiro base, where the Tech Division One Chairperson was helping him with a few final preparations even while looking over her own checklist.

"I guess that makes sense," the jock said, "but this thing's giving me a wedgie."

A small snort escaped Ritsuko before she could stop herself. "I'll make sure the people in charge of designing those suits hear about that," she said.

The jock grunted slightly in response, still looking very uncomfortable in his dark plugsuit.

The bottle blonde finally took her eyes off the clipboard. "Quit looking so gloomy," she chastised him, smirking. "You're a boy, aren't you?"

"Yeah, but it's hard not to feel silly in this getup," Toji responded.

"Nonsense. It's not silly at all. Besides, women love a man in uniform," Ritsuko remarked. "Honestly, it always surprised me that Shinji never seemed able to turn his pilot status into popularity with the ladies."

"Yeah, well, Shin-man's…special that way," he said, grinning in spite of his best efforts not to.

Honestly, the Third Child was his best friend, but when it came to girls, the jock really suspected that something just wasn't wired quite right in Shinji's head. Just about every girl in their class had swarmed him when Kensuke had gotten Shinji to accidentally reveal that he was an EVA pilot, but the Third Child had come off as almost frightened of their attention and had managed to blunt their interest in record time. Then there was the fact that Shinji didn't even seem to understand why his two best friends envied him for getting to live with Misato.

Even if all _that_ wasn't enough, Toji was pretty sure Shinji had been making eyes at the Red Devil herself recently. So far as he was concerned, that was definitive proof that Shinji's judgment was simply impaired when it came to girls.

_Heh, I never really thought all that much what being an EVA pilot could do for my rep with the ladies,_ he thought.

"Hey," he said, "do you think that Misato—?"

"No," Ritsuko answered.

"But maybe if—"

"No."

"Not even if I—?"

"No," Ritsuko repeated. "Now go head up to the entry plug, okay?"

"Fine," he huffed.

There was a small elevator located next to the black EVA Unit, and Toji boarded it, staring at Unit Three as it slowly ascended. He liked the color, but there was something about the helmet that gave him the creeps. It made the EVA look almost…decrepit somehow, he decided.

_I'll have to get them to fix that…right after this damn plug suit,_ he decided, picking at the clingy material.

Eventually, the elevator reached the top, and Toji strode out, toward the waiting entry plug. He hesitated for a moment before climbing into it, recalling how Shinji, clearly feeling down, had once bitterly referred to it as a metal coffin. Even though he remembered his experience riding inside Unit One's plug while his friend fought the Fourth Angel all too well, Toji had still thought that was a little silly.

Not so much anymore.

Taking a deep breath, he climbed into the entry plug and plopped himself down in the chair. A moment later, the hatch on the plug slid closed, and the thing entered Unit Three with a vertigo-inducing motion. Seconds later, he could hear the distinctive hum of machinery and electronics powering up all around him.

The plug quickly filled up with up with LCL, and Toji somehow managed to ignore his basic instincts screaming at him to hold his breath and instead inhaled the stuff. He didn't start drowning like he half expected to, but he immediately decided that Shinji was right; the LCL did smell and taste like blood.

The radio came alive with the chatter of the techs as they ran through the start up procedure, but the newly minted Fourth Child wouldn't have bothered following it even if he could've understood it.

He was too busy trying to keep himself calm.

_It's just a test,_ he told himself. _They'll switch this bad boy on, take some readings and crap, and then turn it off. Then you're done for the day. When the actually scary stuff happens, you'll have Shin-man and the others backing you up. So chill._

Then the technicians fired up the second stage neural connections, and the jock nearly screamed when he felt the tugging sensation on his brain. Shinji had told him about that, but there was no way to really prepare for it.

_Relax! _He ordered himself, even as his heart rate accelerated. _That's normal! Relax!_

He had almost actually calmed down when the moment of truth came.

"Initiating third stage connections!" the voice of Ritsuko Akagi filled his plug, and he knew that this was the part where everything really happened.

A second later, the interior of his entry plug was plunged into darkness.

"G-Guys?" Toji called. "Was there a power failure or something?" With his nerves already jangled, he really didn't need this.

No one responded.

Then Unit Three started to move of its own accord, completely without any input from its pilot, who had lost his mental link with the machine the instant the lights had gone out. He grabbed hold of the control yokes in a death grip, somehow maintaining his composure for the moment.

But when he felt something wet and slimy touch his plugsuit clad leg, that was it. The big tough jock threw back his head and screamed.

* * *

At first, NERV hadn't told the other pilots why they were being ordered to scramble, which was pretty much par for the course, but Asuka just _knew_ that it was because something had gone wrong with the Unit Three activation test the moment she'd gotten the order.

So in complete defiance of her better judgment, she'd brought the bag containing her costume and was now tossing it into her entry plug.

_Well, at least I don't feel ill or anything,_ she thought as she climbed into the plug herself, which quickly slid into her Unit Two. _I guess Akagi was telling the truth when she said the new reactors would be lead lined._

Not that that made her feel _so_ much better about knowing that a chunk of kryptonite was now a part of her precious Unit Two, but it did free her up to worry about other things for the moment.

_I knew letting an idiot like that stooge into an Evangelion was a bad idea,_ she thought as the whirl of colors played out on her HUD before it eventually showed her the world outside the crimson EVA.

"Hi, guys," the uncertain voice of Lieutenant Ibuki crackled over the plug's internal speakers as a window labeled FROM COMMAND popped up on her screen.

It was extremely weird to see the brunette there instead of Misato, the Second Child immediately decided.

"There's been some kind of accident at Matsushiro," Maya continued.

Shinji gasped. "What happened?" he demanded. "Are Misato and Toji okay?"

"We don't yet. Reports are still coming in," Maya answered him apologetically. "But the MAGI have detected a blue pattern from that vicinity, so we're going to deploy the three of you to deal with the Angel."

"Did the Angel cause whatever happened at Matsushiro?" the redhead asked, reining in her natural tendency to blame Toji.

"We have no way of knowing right now," Maya said. "The Angel is heading for Tokyo-3. We're going to be deploying you by Mount Nobe, so you can meet it at about the halfway point."

Asuka could feel Unit Two moving as the sled its feet were clamped to started to slide toward the appropriate lift.

"Wait a minute, without Misato here, who's going to command the mission?" Shinji asked.

"I will," the unmistakable voice of Commander Ikari answered.

Shinji and Asuka both grimaced, but neither of them bothered to argue. Gendo's skills at commanding battles were untested and unproven, but as the leader of NERV Central, he was perfectly within his rights to take charge in a combat situation, especially with the Operations Director currently out of action.

_This is taking forever,_ Asuka thought as the Evangelions were moved into place. Unable to stop herself, she turned her head upwards and focused her eyes, deciding to see if she could find Unit Three or spot the Angel they'd be fighting with her superhuman vision.

A second later, she wished she hadn't.

Unit Three _was_ the Angel. Some kind of viscous, gray substance had taken hold of the Evangelion beneath its armor, invading both its flesh and its entry plug. The Fourth Child appeared to be unconscious, with the Angelic matter growing over him like some kind of extremely malevolent fungus. It didn't seem to have invaded his body yet, but for all she knew it could only be a matter of time.

The redhead suddenly felt the weight of the promises she'd made to Shinji and Hikari pressing on her very heavily now.

_If only I wasn't stuck piloting this thing, I could already be there getting the Stooge out of that thing!_ She thought.

An expression of mingled surprise and horror appeared on her face the instant after the thought passed through her head. Though she had been debating about what she wanted to be for some time now, she had never thought of her precious Unit Two as an _annoyance_ until that moment.

"Evangelions launch!" Maya yelled, and the crimson EVA went hurtling upwards, along with its siblings, interrupting Asuka's train of thought.

In only seconds, the trio of massive war machines arrived at the surface, in the shadow of Mount Nobe. The sun hung low in the sky, a ball of crimson fire that painted everything below a deep red.

It wasn't long before Unit Three made its appearance.

"W-Wait a minute, that's an EVA, not an Angel," spoke Shinji, in the alarmed and uncertain voice of someone who had realized what was happening but didn't want to believe it.

"It has been infected and commandeered by the Angel," the compromising voice of Gendo Ikari answered him. "We have thus designated it an enemy. Your orders are to destroy it."

"Wait a minute, what about the pilot? Is he in there?" Asuka demanded, even though she already knew the answer.

"The ejection system failed," Gendo replied. "But destroying the Angel must be the priority."

"Are you kidding?" the redhead demanded. "We're just going to give up on him? Just like that?"

"Are you questioning my orders, Pilot Soryu?" Gendo asked, his tone low and dangerous.

Before she could respond, the possessed Evangelion pounced, leaping toward her Unit Two with incredible agility, its arms elongating in a way that would've been impossible for a normal EVA as it reached for its foe's throat.

Asuka responded immediately, trying to throw Unit Two into motion to avoid the attack, but it didn't work out quite the way she'd planned. Her superhumanly quick mind issued commands at too great a speed for her Unit Two to keep up with, causing a violent disruption of the synchronization between pilot and EVA. The redhead groaned and clutched at her head; the effects of what she'd just done were like a feedback loop, except rather than a horrible sound, it was an equally horrible physical sensation that made her skin crawl.

Then the Angel was on her, knocking Unit Two to the ground as it disabled the crimson giant with incredible speed and almost surgical precision. Asuka cried out as she felt her Evangelion's agony being transferred to her, their mental synchronization stabilizing at the worst possible time.

Being virtually invincible, it was easy to forget how…_painful_ that pain could be, and reminders were never pleasant.

Then her Evangelion went dark and quiet around her as it deactivated in response to the crippling damage Unit Three had inflicted upon it.

If she'd been a normal girl, she wouldn't have been able to follow the battle at all from that point, but of course she was anything but. So she was able to watch as the Angel incapacitated Unit Zero even more easily than it had her Unit Two, and then move onto Unit One.

She heard Shinji arguing with his father as he defied orders and tried to save Toji, to pull Unit Three's plug out of the possessed Evangelion. She could even hear as Commander Ikari issued the order to activate the Dummy System back at headquarters, over the objections of Dr. Akagi's assistant.

Seeing Unit One wrap its hands around Unit Three's throat, she knew she had to act. She had a promise to keep, after all. Two of them actually.

None of the cameras NERV had trained on the battle were currently pointed anywhere near her Unit Two. Asuka grabbed the lever next to her seat and pulled it, causing her plug to emerge from the red Evangelion's back and open up. Asuka tumbled out along with a small waterfall of LCL, clutching the strap of her red bag as she went. Landing gracefully on the ground, the Second Child took off in a burst of super speed, reaching the nearby forest in only seconds. Faster than the eye could see, she exchanged her plugsuit for her blue and red costume, and soon Supergirl was flying back toward the Angel.

The two Evangelions were still locked in a death struggle when she made it back to the site of the battle, their hands wrapped around each others' neck. Neither was making any effort to defend itself, clearly determined to simply murder the other first.

"Supergirl!" Shinji's voice boomed from Unit One's external speakers as its pilot spotted her. "The pilot's trapped inside the other EVA! You have to save him!"

"Yeah, I was already aware of that, baka," she muttered, but she threw a big, confident grin in Unit One's direction in case he could see her.

Flying over to Unit Three, she instantly saw why the ejection system had failed to liberate the Fourth Child's plug. A web of the same gray goo that had invaded it had formed over the plug, preventing the rockets in the metal cylinder from doing their job properly. Even now, several feet of the entry plug remained out of Unit Three's back.

_Shouldn't be too hard to get out, _she decided, landing lightly on the EVA.

The instant her booted foot touched the black metal covering Unit Three, the Angel responded. The gray substance oozing out between the joints of the Evangelion's armor abruptly came to life, dozens of tendrils streaking toward her, like vipers striking at their prey.

"_So_ not happening," Supergirl declared, as her sky blue eyes quickly turned a bright red color.

Beams of intense heat shot out with precise aim, reducing the parts of the Angel which had dared to lash out at the Girl of Steel into so much ash. The smell of burnt fungus filled the air as she advanced closer toward the plug, similarly frying the Angelic mass holding the entry plug in place. She grabbed the huge cylinder, her fingers easily sinking into the tough metal, then carefully started to pull it free.

_When Asuka Langley Soryu makes a promise, she keeps it!_

* * *

When Unit One's Dummy Plug had come to life and made the purple Evangelion savagely attack Unit Three, the command center in NERV Headquarters had fallen completely silent, save for the cries of the Third Child that were coming over the radio.

The staff had watched in horrified silence as Unit One, the Evangelion that had saved them so many times in the past, attacked its sibling with single-minded viciousness, not caring about the life of the boy still trapped inside the black EVA. Makoto, Aoba, and Ibuki knew that they could stop this horrible slaughter with the push of a few buttons, but they would be quickly removed from the command center and the tragedy would resume. No one but the Commander could stop it for good, and he watched the scene play out with cold eyes that showed no emotion.

Then Maya's terminal started to beep an alarm.

"Sir!" the brunette exclaimed. "I'm picking up some kind of—"

"Supergirl!" Shinji's relieved voice came over the speakers. "The pilot's trapped inside the other EVA! You have to save him!"

The techs were able to find the Girl of Steel with one of the satellite cameras a second later, throwing her image up on the main screen just as she defeated the Angel's attempt to keep her from getting at Unit Three's entry plug.

Up on the highest tier of the command center, Fuyutski leaned down to whisper into Gendo's ear. "She might just pull it off," he said as the superwoman started to pull the metal cylinder from the possessed Evangelion's back.

"She might," Gendo agreed, "unless we stop her."

The older man's eyes widened. "But why?"

"Because both Supergirl and the Third Child need to learn who's in charge here," Gendo answered, pressing a button on the arm of his chair.

"But the Fourth Child!" Fuyutski protested.

"We may never get another opportunity to eliminate Supergirl so easily," Gendo countered. "Casualties were always expected." He added, pressing a button on the arm of his chair.

There was no spectacular explosion, no blare of dramatic music. Unit One didn't start shooting energy blasts out of its eyes.

All that happened was another little alarm went off from one of the main technician's terminals.

"Sir," Aoba said, "the seal on Unit One's K-reactor has been breached! It's leaking radiation."

"The radiation that Mineral-K emits is harmless, Lieutenant," Gendo replied calmly. "Do _not_ power down the reactor."

* * *

"Piece of cake," Supergirl said to herself, having gotten Unit Three's plug almost half out of the Evangelion.

She could've easily pulled it out much more quickly of course, but she _did_ want to avoid hurting the idiot trapped inside the thing, after all. LCL was supposed to cushion against any kind of impacts, but she knew from experience that it had its limits.

Then Unit One's new reactor started to leak kryptonite radiation.

Supergirl gasped, feeling the effects of that loathsome green rock immediately. The entry plug's weight seemed to increase tenfold, and she felt dizzy and nauseous. Her arms shook as she struggled to keep the entry plug from sliding back down into the cavity inside Unit Three's back.

"Damn, I _knew_ something like this would happen," she groaned.

Nevertheless, she redoubled her efforts, desperately trying to get the entry plug out before her super strength faded entirely. The metal cylinder began to rise again, albeit at an agonizingly slow pace this time.

_I promised. I have to do this. I promised,_ she told herself over and over again as she strained to liberate the Fourth Child, ignoring her steadily growing weakness.

Then the Angel lashed out again, as though sensing that its new enemy was vulnerable. Tendrils of the thick, gray material wrapped themselves around her arms, around her legs, and around her waist.

"Great, this is just what I need," she grumbled to herself, bracing herself for them to start pulling her in all directions.

Except they didn't do that. Instead, they started to grow and spread out, and Supergirl realized that the Angel was trying to swallow her whole. Instantly, her head snapped to the side, and she directed another blast of her heat vision at one of the tendrils. It started to burn away, but it wasn't instantly reduced to ash like it had been before that damned reactor had been cracked open. By the time it had been burned enough to fall off of her, another tendril had taken its place.

Then three more grabbed her, two around her waist and one around her head, and for the first time since this whole debacle had started, Supergirl truly felt fear.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** I swear, when I first sat down to write this chapter, I wasn't planning to end it on a cliffhanger like this. It just sort of happened somehow.

Anyway, here we learn what exactly Gendo had the K-reactors modified to do. It's not as dramatic as I think a few of you expected it to be, but Gendo never struck me as a guy who was big on drama. Plausible deniability, on the other hand…

As always, thanks to all my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta reader as well.


	16. Chapter 15

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC comics or anything associated with it and am making no profit off this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Fifteen:** Masks and Shells

Supergirl wasn't sure that things had never looked quite so grim for her. Even when the Parasite had drained her of her superpowers and taken her prisoner, the Girl of Steel hadn't felt as fearful as she did right now.

Rescuing that idiot Toji from his Angel-possessed Evangelion should've been so _easy_. All she had to do was pull Unit Three's entry plug, which NERV's unsuccessful attempt at remotely ejecting had already left exposed, out of his EVA and take it to safety.

Unfortunately, Unit One's Gott damned K-reactor had to start leaking kryptonite radiation everywhere, and suddenly the whole job had become a lot more difficult. Now she was struggling not to drop the entry plug back into the cavity in Unit Three's back; it felt like it was getting heavier and heavier, but she knew it was her who was getting weaker.

Also, the Angel had sent out tendrils of gray goo that had wrapped themselves around her body and were now growing and spreading out in an apparent attempt to eat her. That really wasn't helping anything.

"Supergirl! Please, you have to get Toji out of there!" Shinji's dismayed voice boomed from Unit One's external speakers.

Of course, the test-type Evangelion currently had its hands wrapped around Unit Three's neck in an obvious attempt to strangle the life out of its foe, thanks to control of the EVA having been transferred from the pilot to the Dummy System. Under other circumstances, the juxtaposition of cries to save the pilot of Unit Three coming from the EVA that was aggressively trying to destroy Unit Three with complete disregard for Toji's safety might've been funny.

As it was, she just wanted to scream at the big idiot to shut the hell up and let her work.

_I have to do this,_ she thought to herself, even as the entry plug slipped a little further downwards. _I promised Hikari and stupid Shinji that I'd protect this stooge. I can't fail._

She had _never_ failed, not as Supergirl. Though the Second Child seemed to consistently fall short of expectations when it came to Evangelion, the Girl of Steel had never once failed to save the day. Not once.

_Oh, come on, you know that's not true,_ a familiar and poisonous little voice from the depths of her conscious spoke up.

As much as Supergirl hated to admit it, there was some truth to that. She certainly hadn't saved all the people who'd been swallowed up in a heartbeat by a Dirac Sea the moment someone had switched Unit Four's S2 engine on. Everyday there were people who needed someone to save them but never saw Supergirl swooping in from the heavens to offer deliverance.

Of course, she couldn't realistically be expected to save _everyone_, but oh how it felt like she, with all her stupendous powers, should be able to sometimes.

This was different, though. She had made vows to protect Toji. She _had_ to save the big dumb jock.

"Too bad I have no damn idea how I'm gonna pull it off," she muttered through gritted teeth.

She was getting weaker and weaker by the second, not to mention woozy and nauseous as well. For all her determination and commitment, she just didn't know how she could hope to do this.

The Angel had covered nearly all of her body by this point, and it was starting to creep up her neck and onto her head, leaving her face as the only part of her that was free of it. With a sigh, she leaned her forehead against the cool metal of the entry plug.

_They'll know I tried,_ she thought, waiting for her super strength to evaporate entirely and the plug to slip from her grasp. In seconds, her powers would be almost completely gone, Toji's entry plug would fall back into Unit Three's back, and the damn Angel would consume her.

…except that didn't happen. In fact, Supergirl abruptly realized that she wasn't feeling nearly as sick and as weak as she had a second ago.

_What the hell?_ She wondered.

Then it hit her. Whatever crap that the Angel's actual body was made out of, it was apparently a pretty decent radiation shield. The Thirteenth Angel's attempt to freaking eat her might have just saved her and the stupid jock both!

"Might have" being the key words; just because she felt better didn't mean she was anywhere near back to full strength yet.

With a loud grunt, she pulled upwards on Unit Three's entry plug, putting everything she had left into one explosive heave. The large metal cylinder popped free of Unit Three almost immediately, but Supergirl quickly discovered that she didn't have the strength to hold it above her head. Instead, it went tumbling down off the side of Unit Three's back.

The Girl of Steel held onto it with a death grip, using her flying ability as best she could to slow the plug's fall.

When they were about halfway down the length of Unit Three's body, the long tendrils of gray goop that had grabbed a hold of her pulled taut, arresting her fall. Clearly, the Angel wasn't quite willing to let her go yet. Her eyes widened and her jaw set as she desperately clung to the entry plug, her fingers sinking deep into the metal.

"Gott damn you!" she growled, turning her head so she could fix her gaze on the slimy rope that held her to Unit Three and its parasitic passenger.

She concentrated, and though it instantly made her feel like her head was about to explode, managed to call forth her heat vision. The beams of orange light shot out from her eyes and hit the Angelic matter, which released a sickening smell as it burned.

Finally, it snapped, and she went tumbling to the ground, still clutching the entry plug. Though she did slow it down somewhat, the metal cylinder crashed to the ground with a great deal of force.

"Ooph!" Supergirl grunted as she landed on top of it.

The Angelic glop was sloughing off of her now that it had been separated from the main body, and normally she would've been more than happy to see the disgusting stuff go. However, given that it was the only thing protecting her from the kryptonite inside Unit One, she knew that she had to get away as fast as possible.

Grabbing hold of the plug, she dragged it along the ground, leaving a long, shallow trench in the ground as she did, putting distance between it and the two fighting giants nearby.

"You had better not be dead, stooge," she growled softly once she judged she had gotten the plug far enough away.

With a grunt, Supergirl tore the hatch off the entry plug, unleashing a small flood of LCL. She actually had to resist the urge to burst into tears of relief when she saw the jock's chest rising and falling. He was unconscious and looked rather battered, but he was alive.

She had honored her promise. Now it was time to beat a hasty retreat; she needed to regain her strength and then slip back into her own entry plug before NERV came to collect her.

Supergirl was just flying off when Unit One finally succeeded in breaking Unit Three's neck with a sickening snapping sound. By the time she had recovered enough to return to her plug in a blur of super speed, the purple Evangelion had reduced the possessed EVA into a pile of bloody chunks.

* * *

"The Angel's blue pattern has disappeared, sir. It's dead," Maya announced, rather unnecessarily given that nothing was left of the Thirteenth Angel and Unit Three but scrap metal and practically pureed flesh.

"We're still getting telemetry from the Fourth Child's plug suit," Aoba added. "He's alive, and his vitals are steady. Seems like Supergirl managed to get him out of there."

Despite the strange difficulties that the Girl of Steel had had.

"How fortunate," Gendo said tonelessly, rising from his seat. "Katsuragi, I leave the clean up and retrieval of the Evangelions to you."

With that, he departed from the bridge without another word, Fuyutski following after him.

They were almost all the way back to the Commander's huge office before the former professor offered a remark.

"It seems that the Mineral-K was as effective against Supergirl as you'd hoped," Fuyutski said.

"Obviously it was not. She would be dead, otherwise," the Commander replied coolly.

The older man arched an eyebrow. He knew that Gendo was indifferent to the Fourth Child's survival; the younger man had already sacrificed many lives on the alter of his Scenario, after all. Of course, most people would've found the loss of a known individual to be harder than the loss of a faceless mass of people, but Gendo Ikari generally didn't allow such sentimentality to get to him. Yet even so, the academic was surprised by the other man's reaction.

"She can hardly challenge the Evangelions so long as they maintain the ability to start emitting K-radiation at the push of a button," Fuyutski pointed out. "Surely you must call that a win."

"I will, but the old men will not," Gendo replied. "Chairman Keel is doubtlessly already forming arguments about how we have not adequately prepared to deal with Supergirl, and will point out all the ways she can disrupt the Scenario without ever engaging an Evangelion."

"But why would she want to?" Fuyutski asked.

"There is no way to know, but now that she has directly interfered in our affairs, the odds of it increase," Gendo said.

Fuyutski allowed himself a small smile. "It's unlike you to worry so much about the barbs that Keel will probably direct your way," he said. "And in any case, aside from the K-reactors, what else could you possibly use to stop Supergirl?"

"There's always the trump card we have hidden in the basement of this place," Gendo said.

Fuyutski's eyes widened with alarm. "You can't be serious!"

"Of course not," Gendo said with just a tiny smirk. "Who would seriously refer to that thing as a trump card?"

"Indeed, it's more like mutually assured destruction in a can," the older man grumped. "You know, Ikari, most everyone believes that you have no sense of humor at all. And that's probably a good thing."

* * *

"Thanks a lot for helping me cut through all the red tape, Asuka," Hikari said. "I don't even want to think about how many forms and junk I'd have to fill out without you."

"Don't worry about it," Asuka said with a dismissive little wave. "What's the point of being an EVA pilot if I don't use the perks that come with the job?"

It was the day after the Thirteenth Angel had possessed Unit Three, and already Toktyo-3 had largely returned to normal, almost as though nothing at all had happened. Familiarly truly did breed contempt, even where giant monsters were concerned, apparently.

Of course, for those involved with the battles and those close to them, normalcy wasn't quite so quick to return. That was why Asuka was spending her morning escorting Hikari to the NERV Medical Ward, making sure that no guard or pencil pusher thwarted her friend as she tried to visit Toji.

Considering her opinion of the jock, Asuka privately felt she deserved a medal for this, but she'd call herself satisfied with the class rep's gratitude.

"Ok, this should be it," Asuka said as they reached the correct door in the small but very advanced hospital. She gave it a few quick raps with her knuckles. "Yo, stooge! We're coming in, so you'd better be decent!"

"Asuka!" Hikari hissed as the redhead then proceeded to push open the door with no further warning.

Fortunately, she revealed nothing more scandalous than Toji laying in bed, clad in the puke green pajamas that the ward issued to all its inpatients. The jock's left arm was encased in a plaster cast almost up to his shoulder, and an IV line was running into his right arm. The tall boy looked tired but otherwise cheerful.

"Hey, class rep," he greeted Hikari. Then in a much less friendly tone, he added, "Hello, demon."

"Stooge," Asuka acknowledged him with a curt nod.

Hikari, whose eyes were locked onto the cast on Toji's arm, took a little longer to find her voice. "What happened to you?" she asked. "They said you weren't too badly hurt!"

He gave a weak chuckle. "I guess 'not too badly hurt' means different things to different people," he observed.

"His arm is broken in three places from getting bounced around in his entry plug," Asuka supplied. "And the doctors _say_ he got a concussion, but I don't believe that myself."

Hikari frowned. "Why not?"

"A concussion is when the brain gets bruised," the Second Child explained. "It's kind of hard for that to happen when you've got no brain at all."

"Why are you even here, Red?" Toji demanded crabbily.

"NERV wouldn't have let me in here without her help," the brunette put in before Asuka could response with the biting remark she'd been preparing. "Please don't fight, you two."

"Fine," Asuka and Toji grumbled in unison.

A brief but awkward pause followed.

"Um, I brought you your schoolwork," Hikari said, reaching into her bag. "Also, a lot of the other students wrote you well wishes and things. Mostly your teammates on the basketball team."

"Thanks," Toji said, though he looked less the enthused about the homework. "And…thanks for taking the trouble to visit me, Hikari."

"Oh," the class rep flushed, her cheeks going scarlet. "You're…you're welcome."

The two stared into each other's eyes for a long moment.

Then Toji cleared his throat loudly and directed his gaze to Asuka. "You think you could give us a minute?" he asked.

The redhead rolled her eyes. "Fine," she said. Then, leaning in close to Hikari, she added in a faux whisper that she knew Toji was perfectly capable of hearing, "If he gets fresh with you, just yell, and I'll be back in here in a heartbeat."

The jock made a face but otherwise kept his peace while the Second Child departed from the room.

Once outside, Asuka shut the door behind her, leaned against the wall, and waited. Given how labyrinthine NERV headquarters was, she knew that her friend, who was completely unfamiliar with the place, would almost certainly get lost if she ditched her.

That didn't make it any easier to deal with the boredom. Or trying not to listen in on Hikari and Toji's conversation, which, thanks to her superhuman hearing, was extremely difficult.

In order to avoid eavesdropping on her friend, the redhead focused her ears on other sounds around the ward, listening to the humming and beeping of medical equipment and the buzz of conversation. It wasn't long before she found one that caught her interest, and despite herself she started to pay closer attention to it.

_"Hey, Yoshi, how are you doing?"_

_ "All right, you?"_

_ "Not bad. By the way, where the heck did you disappear to the other day?"_

_ "Huh? I don't know what you're talking about," _Yoshi said nervously.

_"Yeah, right,"_ the other man said, sarcasm dripping from those two words. _"One of this place's senior doctors can't just disappear for over an hour without people taking notice."_

_ "Oh, right. It was just a little errand I had to run," _Yoshi replied, sounding more insincere and ill at ease than ever.

_"You know,"_ the other man said in a soft, conspiratorial tone. _"Rumor has it that you left to give Ikari a private checkup. That the Commander's sick and doesn't want anybody to know it."_

Yoshi laughed, and Asuka immediately know that his friend's shot in the dark had been a complete miss. It was the first sound the doctor had made that sounded genuine since the inquiries had started. _"No, Ikari's fine. You know it's the _good_ who die young."_

_ "Then what the heck was it? A senior doctor doesn't just get to pull a disappearing act around here with no consequences without an order from Ikari. So what did he want you for?"_

_ "Well…"_

The door to Toji's hospital room opened just then, and Asuka reluctantly abandoned the conversation before Yoshi's friend could weasel any hints out of him, suddenly feeling rather guilty about snooping like that.

"Ready to go?"

"Yeah," Hikari nodded.

"So, how was it?" Asuka asked.

"Oh, it was all right," the class rep answered, though she blushed so hard her freckles seemed to disappear, which was a pretty good sign she was understating things. "I was surprised at how badly hurt he was."

"The doctors say he'll make a full recovery, but…" Asuka coughed nervously. "Look, I know I said I'd look out for him. And, well, I did do my damnedest to keep anything from happening to him, even though I don't like him, but…"

"It's okay, I understand you did your best," Hikari said, finally waving away her friend's awkward almost-apology. "And I _do_ understand that it could've been a lot worse. I'm just glad Supergirl showed up to get him out of there."

"Yeah, that was lucky," Asuka agreed, trying to mask her discomfort.

"I'm surprised she apparently had so much trouble getting him out of there, though," Hikari remarked. "After all, everybody's always saying she's so powerful, so you'd think it would be easy for her."

Asuka practically had to bite her tongue to keep herself from explaining to Hikari just _why_ Supergirl had had so much trouble getting that stupid jock out of harm's way.

Of course, that would have required telling Hikari that she was Supergirl, which Asuka was also tempted to do. Being the Girl of Steel and trying to live up to the image people had of her just seemed so _big_ at times, and Asuka really would've liked to talk to someone about it.

She scowled as soon as the thought crossed her mind. Wanting to "talk about it" made her feel weak. Wasn't she Asuka Langley Soryu, who had proclaimed from a very young age that she didn't need anyone and would live always for herself?

"Asuka? Are you all right?" Hikari asked. "You're so quiet."

"Just fine," the redhead replied with a nod and jaunty little grin that she didn't feel.

Really, she shouldn't be burdening Hikari with her problems, anyway; the class rep had more than enough issues of her own to deal with, and just because they were a lot more mundane than Asuka's problems didn't make them easily resolved.

Also, if she was being honest with herself, the person she really wanted to speak to was the only one who already knew that Asuka Soryu and Supergirl were actually the same person. Unfortunately, picking up a phone and giving Emil Hamilton a call was simply out of the question, thanks to how closely NERV monitored the pilots. It would risk opening up a line of questioning that might allow NERV to eventually figure out she was Supergirl, and it could very well endanger Emil as well.

Going to see him in person again was an option, of course, but Asuka doubted that she'd be able to find a big enough window of time for a quick flight to the other side of Eurasia and back any time soon.

_Things would be so much easier if only he was closer,_ Asuka mused as she led Hikari out of NERV.

* * *

Of course, Emil Hamilton was much closer than Asuka believed. The scientist, who by now was so dirty and bedraggled as to be unrecognizable from the neatly kempt academic the Girl of Steel had encountered in Germany, still languished in his lead-lined, sound-proofed cell.

Captain Chiron hadn't shown up to attempt to torture him into revealing Supergirl's true identity in some time, nor had he blasted loud music into his room to prevent Hamilton from sleeping. The scientist couldn't say exactly how long his reprieve had been, since he had no real way to keep track of the passing of time, aside from the meals that were slipped inside under the door. They seemed to come at irregular intervals, but he could be wrong about that.

A doctor had come in to look him over at one point. Hamilton supposed he should've felt comforted by that, but he didn't. The man hadn't been able to look him in the eye the whole time he'd been conducting the check-up.

The new status quo should've been better than when he'd been getting tormented and subjected to excruciating pain on a daily basis, and in some ways it was. In other ways, it was actually worse. The fear that came with not knowing what was in store for him, the _expectation_ of more torture or death, was almost unbearable.

The floor creaked as someone walked around by the door to his cell, and Hamilton immediately jumped to his feet, pressing his back up against the wall opposite the door. Beads of cold sweat started to run down his brow.

Then…nothing happened. No one opened the door.

Eventually, Hamilton allowed himself to slide down the wall and back into a sitting position. It looked like his reprieve continued.

For now.

Leaning his head against the wall, he heaved a deep sigh. "I hate this place."

* * *

"He looks pretty ready to break to me, boss."

Watching a live feed of Hamilton not far away from the man's cell, Captain Chiron directed a scowl at his de facto second in command.

"No, Sato, not yet," Chiron said firmly. "He's still jumping at every noise and shadow. We need to wait until he _stops_ doing that."

"And what if that takes months?" Sato countered. "The Commander's not gonna want to wait that long, especially now that Supergirl actually got involved in one of our battles."

Chiron had to resist the urge to snap at Sato. Honestly, the man was very competent, especially when it came to field operations, which was more than he could say about the vast bulk of the personnel working under him. However, he had no real grasp of the psychology of making a person give out information that they wanted to keep secret. So far as Sato was concerned, it was just a matter of hurting someone enough without killing them or driving them mad.

The Chief of Section Two knew better, though.

"If I go in there and start interrogating him again, he'll be practically relieved," he growled. "I need him to let his guard down. Up until then, all I can accomplish is resetting the damn clock, which would make this whole process take even longer."

"But Ikari—"

"Ikari gave me a free hand with this," Chiron cut him off. "Besides, the Commander's interested in _results_. Proof that I tried really hard to get the information out of Hamilton isn't going to mean a damn thing to him."

Sato shrugged. "You're in charge."

"And don't you forget it," Chiron said.

The other man nodded. "I have to go, I have guard duty on Ayanami today."

Chiron waved him off, and Sato left without another word. However, the Chief of Section Two remained where he was for several moments after the other man had left, staring at the live feed showing the inside of Hamilton's cell.

"When you least expect it, I _will_ break you," Chiron whispered.

* * *

Moto Minami was having a pretty good day, he decided as he walked down a city street in the middle of Tokyo-3. His boss had paid him a compliment at work earlier, which he felt was a pretty strong sign that he was going to get a promotion, and now he was on his way to visit his older brother and his family, which Moto was quite looking forward to.

Humming a little tune to himself, he turned a corner…and suddenly his whole day went sour. Very sour.

The apartment building where his brother lived was on fire.

"Oh no," he breathed, feeling as though a ball of ice had abruptly formed in his stomach.

Breaking out into a run, Moto sprinted toward the burning building as quickly as his legs would take him, heedless of the other pedestrians he sent sprawling to the ground as he went and the obscenities they shouted at him.

_Thank god I've stayed in shape,_ he thought to himself as he skidded to a halt near his brother's apartment building, where the fire department had hastily put up a bunch of yellow and black barriers to keep the civilians a safe distance away.

"Jiro!" he shouted, calling his brother's name. "Brother, where are you?! Jiro!"

"Moto?" Jiro spoke, emerging from the crowd of people that were milling around outside the building, residents of the place and random spectators both. The elder brother's clothes were smeared with black soot in places, and he reeked of smoke.

"Brother, what happened?" Moto asked.

Jiro just shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "One minute everything was fine, we were getting ready for Aki's birthday dinner, and then there was fire all over the place. The building's fire alarms never came on. Same with the sprinklers."

_Oh god,_ Moto thought. His stomach lurched, and he had to clamp his throat shut to keep from vomiting then and there.

"Where are—?"

"Jiro!" Moto's sister-in-law Reiko suddenly burst out of the crowd and came running toward them, as badly smeared with soot as her husband.

"Thank goodness you're all right!" Jiro exclaimed. "But…where's Aki?"

"I thought she was with you," Reiko answered softy.

Husband and wife shared a horrified look.

Meanwhile, Moto turned to gaze up at the burning building. His niece was still in there. It was her ninth birthday. At the moment, it looked like it would be her last one, too.

And it was all Moto's fault.

Making a snap decision, the younger brother took off at a run, jumping the barriers. Ignoring the shouts of the firemen nearby, he ran into the front door of the apartment building and then headed for the stairs.

"Damn it, damn it to hell," he cursed under his breath as he ascended flight after flight, doing his best the way the temperature seemed to get higher with each floor.

He had thought he was being _so_ brave when he'd denied the "request" from those yakuza thugs (or at least, he'd assumed that they were yakuza). He'd known that there might well be…repercussions, of course, but he hadn't ever expected this. In his arrogance and naivety, he'd thought they would only come after him.

He had never for a moment suspected that they'd go after his family, instead.

Finally reaching the floor where his brother's apartment was (and for crying out, _why_ did Jiro have to live so far above the ground level?), Moto opened the door leading out of the stairwell, then winced at the wave of heat that rolled out toward him, almost like a living thing.

The cloud of dark smoke that hung in the air wasn't helping anything, either.

Ignoring the flames all around him and the way the whole damn place was crumpling, he ran down the hall, keeping his head down and squinting as he tried to read the numbers on the apartment doors. He'd been to this place countless times in the past, being quite close with his brother, but it seemed so different now. It didn't feel familiar at all.

Finally finding the correct door, Moto tried the handle, only to pull his hand back with a cry of pain. The damn thing was as hot as any pan left on the stove. With a growl of frustration, he lashed out at the door with a sharp kick.

Then he let out of a yell. The bones in his foot seemed to have shattered all at once, or so it felt like. The door _did_ give a bit, though, so Moto grit his teeth and kicked it again.

At last, the door opened, and Moto staggered inside.

_Yup, definitely hurt my damn foot,_ he thought, looking around. His brother's apartment was ablaze, and looked almost as alien to him as the hallway had. It took him a few moments to figure out which way Aki's room was, but once he did, he started making his way there as quickly as he could.

He almost made it, too.

As it turned out, his timing had been exactly wrong; a chunk of smoldering debris fell from the ceiling, landing right on top of him and sending him crashing to the ground. If he'd hesitated for just one more second, or for one less second, it probably would've missed him entirely.

"No…" he groaned weakly, trying to get up but finding that he just wasn't strong enough to liberate himself.

He had failed, and he was going to die. Worse, Aki was going to die, too. Her life hadn't even truly begun, and now it was over.

Then the door to the little girl's room swung open. Moto didn't notice at first; the crackling of the flames masked the sound quite well, and he was too busy being miserable to really observe the world around him.

When he saw a pair of red boots in front of his face, though, Moto started to pay attention again. He tried to look up, but he could only raise his gaze high enough to see that a rather shapely pair of legs was coming out of the boots.

"You know," a young woman's voice said, "rushing up here to try and play hero was really stupid. Brave, but stupid."

Before Moto could even think of something to say to that, the weight keeping him pinned to the ground vanished. He looked up, and his jaw dropped at what he saw.

Supergirl was standing in the middle of his brother's burning living room, holding Aki with one arm. The little girl didn't look the least bit of afraid of the situation they were in, no doubt feeling completely safe thanks to the presence of the superwoman.

Moto wished he could feel as confident that everything would be fine.

"Here," Supergirl said, taking his hand and helping him to his feet. "Now stand behind me."

Before he could ask what she was about to do, the Girl of Steel inhaled deeply, obviously not bothered by the smoke. Then she pursed her lips and blew, released a blast of frigid air. In seconds, most of the flames had been extinguished, and the temperature of the room had gone from sweltering to freezing. Shoving Moto out of the way, Supergirl turned and did the rest of the living room.

"Cool!" Aki exclaimed.

"Yeah," Moto agreed, amazed and not afraid to show it. "Uh, I don't supposed you can do the rest of the building?"

"Not without blowing it over," Supergirl said, putting Aki down on the floor. Then she marched up to one of the walls and fired a punch at it, knocking a huge hole it. Sunlight spilled into the charred living room. "I don't need to put out the whole fire to get you two out, though."

Picking each of them up with arm, Supergirl lifted gently into the air, flying out through the window. Moto grabbed onto the superwoman's shoulder as they made the transition from living room to open space. Aki didn't; she just grinned madly, clearly enjoying the experience.

In only a couple of minutes, they were down on the ground, safe outside the barrier that the firemen had set up. Then Juri and Reiko were upon them, hugging their birthday girl and thanking Supergirl profusely. The Girl of Steel accepted their gratitude graciously, then went to have a word with one of the firemen, assuring him that no one else was trapped inside the building.

Then, she turned, ready to leave.

"Supergirl, wait," Moto called to her.

"Yes?" she asked, arching an eyebrow at him.

He hesitated for a long moment. "Thank you," he said eventually. "For saving my niece. And me."

She gave him a smile. "You're welcome," she said.

Then she was flying though the air. A second later, she was gone.

* * *

"Not a bad way to spend an afternoon," Supergirl remarked to herself as she flew back to the apartment that she called home.

For all that she had first put on a cape seeking only praise, the Girl of Steel had genuinely come to view going out and helping people as Supergirl as her favorite pastime…even if it probably wasn't for all the best reasons.

She still took satisfaction from it, and she was increasingly viewing it as her responsibility, but lately the real allure was how it allowed her to stop thinking about other things for a while. After all, not even she could ponder the way her subconscious views of her precious Unit Two were changing—going from prize, to encumbrance, to annoyance—when she was pulling someone out of a burning car. Questions about who and what she wanted to be, along with concerns about the stupid K-reactors inside the Evangelions, got put on hold for a while.

Of course, not even she could be out there saving people all the time. Making a quick stop the change her clothes, the Girl of Steel returned to the apartment.

"I'm home," she called.

No one answered her, but she could hear the sound of Shinji breathing and heartbeat coming from the living room. The Third Child was listening to old SDAT player, which was probably why he hadn't responded.

Taking her shoes, Asuka walked over to the couch and leaned over it, finding Shinji laying there. "Hello there, Third Child!" she said loudly.

Shinji, who hadn't realized she was even in the apartment until that moment, was badly startled and abruptly sat up. Asuka managed to pull back, of course, but if she hadn't been superhuman, their heads probably would've collided rather painfully.

"Oh, uh, hello, Asuka," Shinji said, pulling out his ear buds.

"So, why so gloomy?" the redhead asked, propping her elbows on the top of the couch. "I know your friend got a little banged up the other day, but you heard the doctors. He's gonna be fine."

"Yeah, and I'm happy about that, really," he said. "But the whole thing was still pretty unsettling."

"What do you mean?"

"You know about how my father turned on the Dummy System and took control of the EVA away from me," Shinji said. "If Supergirl hadn't shown up, Unit One would've torn Toji's Evangelion apart with him still in it, all because of my father."

Asuka didn't know what to say to that. With the dumb jock still alive and on the path to a full recovery, the redhead had mostly been relieved that she'd (more or less) kept the promises she'd made to her best friend and her fellow EVA pilot. With disaster averted, she hadn't given much thought to what might've happened, let alone pondered _why_ it might've happened.

"I was starting to think he might be okay," Shinji said. "Not, you know, perfect or anything. But okay. A decent person, at least. Now…" he trailed off.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Uh, sure, I guess," he said.

"Why do you keep hanging around here?" she asked. "You seem to keep winding up with the short end of the stick from NERV, so why don't you just go back to where you lived before?"

"Why? Looking to get rid of me?" he asked, and the small smile he wore was the only sign that he was joking, rather than hurt.

"No!" Asuka exclaimed, and she was surprised and embarrassed at how emphatically that came out. She quickly rebounded and pushed forward, though. "I was just wondering. What keeps you here?"

His dark blue eyes met her lighter ones. "I just got too attached to the people here, I guess."

"Oh," Asuka said, pulling back as she felt a traitorous warmth in her cheeks. "Okay, then."

He was probably talking about his dumb friends, and maybe Misato, Asuka told herself. Certainly not her, and it shouldn't matter to her anyway, whether stupid Shinji valued her like that or not.

Really.

"Hey, Asuka, I was wondering—"

The Third Child was cut off as both their cell phones started to go off at once.

"You've _got_ to be kidding me," Shinji growled to no one in particular as he reached into his pocket.

Asuka got her cell before the Third could grab his and quickly discovered that, no, no one was kidding him. Even though the Thirteenth had struck only days ago, the Fourteenth Angel was already making its appearance.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Well, it looks like Asuka managed to save Toji and get him away (mostly) unharmed. I guess it's not a surprise, really. She is Supergirl, after all. Of course, now it's the Fourteenth Angel's turn to bat, and after that one, well, I'm sure you all know what comes next. I guess we'll just have to wait and find out how she deals with those.

Anyway, thanks as always to my readers and reviewers.

* * *

Omake

Wardrobe Malfunction

"You know," a young woman's voice said, "rushing up here to try and play hero was really stupid. Brave, but stupid."

Before Moto could even think of something to say to that, the weight keeping him pinned to the ground vanished. He looked up, and his jaw dropped at what he saw.

Supergirl was standing in the middle of his brother's burning living room, holding Aki with one arm. The little girl didn't look the least bit of afraid of the situation they were in, no doubt feeling completely safe thanks to the presence of the superwoman.

Moto wished he could feel as confident that everything would be fine.

"Here," Supergirl said, taking his hand and helping him to his feet. "Now stand behind me."

Before he could ask what she was about to do, the Girl of Steel inhaled deeply, obviously not bothered by the smoke. Then she pursed her lips and blew, released a blast of frigid air. In seconds, most of the flames had been extinguished, and the temperature of the room had gone from sweltering to freezing.

Of course, Supergirl couldn't unleash blasts of arctic cold in a confined space like the apartment's living room without making it rather windy, which in turn made her skirt blow up...

_Whoa,_ Moto thought.

Then the Girl of Steel turned and caught him staring. Her sky blue eyes hardened, and she marched up to him.

Moto tried desperately to explain himself, to apologize, but he couldn't manage more than incoherent stuttering.

"You probably think I'm about to punch you into next week," Supergirl said in a low, dangerous voice. "Maybe even pull a huge mallet out of nowhere and give you a smack with it."

Swallowing, Moto nodded.

"Well, I won't," Supergirl said cheerfully, even as her eyes narrowed. "Not because you don't deserve it, of course, but because I have a reputation to maintain. Also, going all tsun on you like that would just be _so_ cliche."

A moment later, Supergirl was flying Moto and Aki down to the safety of the street, and all Moto could think about was it was fortunate for him that the Girl of Steel apparently cared about not overusing narrative devices.


End file.
